Trump’s Latest Deal with Belarus Sure Smells Like Sh*t

2 min read“Potash” is a fun word to say. It sounds like the grease that’s left over after you make home fries. It actually is the world’s greatest natural fertilizer. It owes its existence to inland seas that aren't there any more. As it happens, in 1943, a motherlode of potash was discovered in Saskatchewan. Canada remains the world's leading potash supplier; it produces 15 million metric tons a year. However, once the Soviet Union collapsed, private potash developers from Russia and Belarus bum-rushed the world potash market. Which is where our story begins.Recently, Canada made our president mad, so he threw a fit and blew up our trade policies with our northern neighbor. This naturally included potash, but President Art O’Deal reassured American farmers that he had the whole thing covered because he is so chummy with the various authoritarians and general sleazeballs now presiding over the former Soviet republics. One of these is Alexander Lukashenko, who manages Vladmir Putin's subsidiary in Belarus. After screwing things up with Canada, our president reassured us on his little vanity platform that the U.S. would not be facing a potash gap.The United States is working on a massive deal with respect to the purchase of potash from Belarus. The pricing would be for substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada, very good news for our farmers and ranchers.Except, well, no.From Politico Europe:Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has admitted his country doesn't have enough potash to satisfy U.S. President Donald Trump's demands for the critical fertilizer. “Everyone keeps saying: Ah, potash! Even if we wanted to supply [potash] to other, Western markets, we simply do not have those volumes—everything is contracted,” Lukashenko said Monday at a meeting with Vladimir Orlovsky, head of the Belarusian state customs authority.Lukashenko said earlier this month that Belarus has supplied the U.S. with potash for the first time since 2021. Washington imposed sanctions on Belarusian fertilizer after the government violently suppressed nationwide protests over the rigged 2020 elections. The sanctions were lifted in March.Our president has made some swell friends for our country.“Now we are loading potash—we are selling it to the United States of America,” Lukashenko told reporters on September 11. But Belarus cannot supply large volumes to the U.S., as its output is already contracted for this year, he added Monday.There’s a metaphor in there somewhere about this president initiating a fertilizer crisis, but I don’t have the energy to run it down now.