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Trump Is Spoiling for a Fight over Canadian Potash

The fertilizer that feeds America is key to the president’s next confrontation with Ottawa

In December 2025, United States president Donald Trump struck a deal that—uncharacteristically for such a spectacle-driven politician—barely registered among the general public.

The agreement committed the Belarusian government to releasing 123 political prisoners, a significant concession from one of Europe’s most entrenched authoritarian regimes. In return, Washington agreed to lift sanctions on Belarus’s potash exports—sanctions it escalated after the country’s rigged 2020 election and later expanded, in 2022, when Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory to invade Ukraine.

Why potash? Blame Canada. The United States can live without many imports. It can’t farm at scale without our potash. In 2024, the US imported about 12 million tonnes of the fertilizer from Canada, all of it dug from Saskatchewan, where it enters the US tariff-free under the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). Cut that supply, and American agriculture could grind to a halt.

As CUSMA heads into renegotiation this summer, the mood in Washington appears confrontational. Reopening Belarusian exports would give the US access to one of the few alternative global reserves—and, with it, leverage in an area it currently has little.

I called up Matt Simpson, chief executive officer of Brazil Potash, a Brazilian company attempting to mine and produce potash fertilizer in the Amazon basin in a bid to supply more of that country’s demand. He explained why Canada has long been the backbone of the US potash supply, how reliance on Belarus introduces serious geopolitical and pricing vulnerabilities, and what this means for global food security if trade tensions escalate.

Potash is an interesting commodity. It rarely gets talked about in public but seems just as geopolitically important as oil or microchips.

I’d argue it’s even more important. Along with nitrogen and phosphorus, potash is one of three main nutrients needed to grow food. It’s one thing not having access to cutting-edge AI technology. It’s another to not be able to eat.

There’s no substitute for potash?

There isn’t. And a lot of people don’t understand what it does. One, it strengthens the stem of plants to make them resilient to stress. Think about how erratic the weather’s been lately. Twenty-degree temperature swings in a single week, flooding in places that have never seen it, drought elsewhere, and new waves of pests. Potash helps plants survive that volatility. Second, it improves taste and texture. What makes a tomato ripe and firm? Potassium. Same with bananas. Without it, they’re mushy. And no potash, no modern farming. Soil becomes too exhausted to sustain the yields agriculture now requires. The scale we take for granted would be impossible.

But usefulness is only half the story, right? The other half, as I understand it, is the supply, and how narrowly it is........

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