Nutrien Stock Falls on Trump’s Belarus Potash Plan. The Sanctions Argument Is Nine Months Out of Date
Nutrien stock closed at C$104.49 on Monday, September 21, 2026, down C$3.46 or 3.21%, after Trump posted on Truth Social that Washington was working on a deal to buy potash from Belarus. Price data as of that close, source: StockAnalysis.
Much of the coverage of the selloff rested on the same objection: Belarusian potash is under US sanctions, so the deal cannot happen. That objection is nine months out of date, and the real obstacles are volume, contracts and geography.
What was actually said
Trump’s post was short. “The United States is working on a massive Deal with respect to the purchase of Potash from Belarus,” he wrote, adding that “The pricing would be for substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada, very good news for our Farmers and Ranchers.”
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko responded, according to news reports, that his country does not have the volumes to supply Western markets because its output is already contracted. Two materially different English translations are circulating, so we are not quoting him.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, quoted by paNOW, said: “More than 40 countries – Canada and its allies – have sanctions against Belarus for supporting war criminal Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.” He added: “Buying blood potash from Belarus is supporting Russian aggression. It’s wrong and it doesn’t make sense.”
The US sanctions on Belarusian potash are already gone
On December 15, 2025, the Office of Foreign Assets Control issued Belarus General License No. 13, authorizing “all transactions prohibited by the Belarus Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 548” involving Joint Stock Company Belarusian Potash Company, Agrorozkvit LLC and Belaruskali OAO, plus any entity owned 50% or more by them. It was published in the Federal Register on March 2, 2026 at 91 FR 10002.
The delisting went further than the license. We downloaded OFAC’s own Specially Designated Nationals file on September 22, 2026, all 19,393 entries, and searched it. Belaruskali: no hits. Belarusian Potash Company: no hits. Agrorozkvit: no hits. The word “potash” appears nowhere in the list, though much of the Belarusian state still does, including Foreign LLC Slavkali, a separate Belarusian potash developer still designated under BELARUS-EO14038. OFAC’s current Belarus program page no longer lists General License 13 either. The exporters were carved out while the rest of the industrial base stayed blocked.
Europe is a different matter, and Moe’s point was about allied sanctions collectively. RFE/RL reported in May 2026 that the EU had unanimously extended its Belarus measures earlier in the year, including an import ban on Belarusian potassium-based fertilizers, that Washington lifted its Belaruskali sanctions in March 2026 as part of a political-prisoner release, and that in May it asked Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine to allow potash transit. We have not matched that reporting to a primary document, so treat it as reported. What is established is that this trade became legal nine months ago and has not happened.
Why it has not happened: the arithmetic
Start with how much potash Belarus actually mines.
| Country | 2024 | 2025 (est.) |
|---|---|---|
| Canada | 14,400 | 15,000 |
| Russia | 10,000 | 10,000 |
| China | 6,300 | 6,300 |
| Belarus | 5,000 | 6,000 |
| Germany | 2,500 | 3,000 |
| Laos | 2,400 | 2,400 |
| Israel | 2,260 | 2,000 |
| Jordan | 1,730 | 1,800 |
| United States | 410 | 500 |
| World total (rounded) | 46,700 | 49,000 |
World potash mine production, thousand metric tons of K2O equivalent. Source: US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, February 2026, POTASH, page 2.
On the 2025 estimates in that USGS chapter, Canada’s 15,000 thousand tonnes of K2O equivalent is 30.6% of the 49,000 world total. Belarus, at 6,000, is 12.2%. Canada mines 2.5 times what Belarus does.
American demand sits on the same K2O basis. The USGS puts 2025 US imports for consumption at 5,600 thousand tonnes, domestic mine production at 500 and apparent consumption at 5,900. Net import reliance is 92%, and it has not left the 92% to 94% band in any year since 2021. US mines cover 8.5% of national consumption. Canada supplied 79% of US imports over 2021 to 2024, and Russia 12%.
So the swap described on Monday asks Belarus to send 5,600 of the 6,000 thousand tonnes it mines, 93% of its entire national output, to the United States alone, while Lukashenko says the book is already sold. Potash carries a global price too: the USGS average for muriate of potash in 2025 was $600 per metric ton of K2O equivalent, f.o.b. mine. Shifting 5.6 million tonnes of demand between suppliers does not leave that price undisturbed.
Then the route. Belarus is landlocked. Its historic outlet was the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, closed to Belarusian potash transit in early 2022 after the US designations, with exports since moving through Russian Baltic ports, principally Ust-Luga and St Petersburg. That routing detail comes from news reporting rather than a primary EU document. If the EU import ban stands, Klaipeda stays shut whatever Washington does, and Moe named the consequence: “All of that potash has to be shipped first through Russia, then across the ocean, then across the US to mid-western farmers.”
The USGS chapter also records that potash was added to the US Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals, published in the Federal Register on November 7, 2025 at 90 FR 50494. The US has formally designated as critical the mineral it now proposes to buy from Belarus through Russian ports.
What Nutrien actually has at risk
Nutrien sits at the centre of any list of Canadian mining stocks, so the question worth answering is how much of its potash earnings the American market really carries. The units change here: the USGS figures above are K2O equivalent, Nutrien reports product tonnes, and the two are not interchangeable.
In the second quarter of 2026 Nutrien sold 3,943 thousand tonnes of potash, 922 thousand in North America and 3,021 thousand offshore. Potash net sales were $1,053 million and adjusted EBITDA $658 million, at an average net selling price of $267 per tonne: $295 in North America, $259 offshore. Those figures come from Nutrien’s Q2 2026 results release of August 5, 2026, which we went through when Nutrien’s second-quarter results landed.
North America is 23.4% of those volumes and offshore is 76.6%. “North America” includes Canada and Mexico, so the US share alone is smaller than 23.4%. The North American realized price carries a $36 per tonne premium to offshore, or 13.9%. Applied to the quarter’s 922 thousand North American tonnes, that premium is worth about $33 million, which is 5.0% of the quarter’s potash adjusted EBITDA and 3.2% of its potash net sales.
Be clear about what that figure is not. It is a crude upper bound that assumes every displaced tonne finds an offshore buyer at the offshore netback, ignores freight and logistics differences, and holds the offshore price still, which it would not do if 5.6 million tonnes of US demand had to be re-sourced globally. The exposure is not the volume. It is the freight-advantaged netback premium on roughly a fifth of the tonnes, a single-digit percentage of potash earnings rather than a hole in the business. Management’s description of the market in August: “Global potash markets remain constructive due to favorable affordability, healthy demand in all major global markets and stable supply relative to other commodities.”
A 3.21% move and a fraction of one segment’s price premium are not the same thing, and that is the gap between a price change and a change in value. Our guide to what actually moves a stock price is about exactly that.
What would change this view
Three developments would turn Monday into a real escalation: a signed offtake agreement with volumes and dates, an EU decision to lift the fertilizer import ban and reopen Klaipeda transit, or a US tariff line on Canadian potash moving off “Free”. As of December 31, 2025, every potash line in the USGS tariff table carried a Normal Trade Relations rate of Free. Canadian potash was never tariffed through the trade war, so Monday’s threat is about displacement, not duties.
None of the three has happened. A social media post is not a supply agreement.
Disclaimer
Disclaimer: The content on bestcanadianstocks.ca is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Share price from StockAnalysis, close of Monday September 21, 2026. Company potash segment figures, in product tonnes and US dollars, from Nutrien’s second quarter 2026 results release of August 5, 2026. World potash mine production, US import, consumption, price and tariff figures, all on a thousand-metric-tons-of-K2O-equivalent basis, from the US Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Summaries, February 2026, POTASH chapter, pages 1 and 2. Sanctions text from OFAC Belarus General License No. 13 as published in the Federal Register at 91 FR 10002, and from OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals list as downloaded September 22, 2026. Premier Scott Moe’s remarks as reported by paNOW on September 21, 2026. EU sanctions status, the reported March 2026 delisting and the May 2026 transit request as reported by RFE/RL on May 22, 2026.
