There’s a reason Republicans are fighting for their lives in farm states like Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, and Michigan.
Tariffs have decimated overseas markets, mass deportations have stripped farms of labor, and soaring diesel prices have driven up operating costs. All of it means greater expenses and tighter margins for an industry already under tremendous financial strain.
None of this is new; President Donald Trump also screwed farmers during his first term, forcing Republicans to shovel billions of dollars into farm bailouts to mitigate the damage.
But like moths to a flame, rural voters overwhelmingly pulled the lever for Trump again in 2024.
What is it they say is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?
Well, here we are again, and rural America is paying for it again.
Like with fertilizer, specifically potash—a potassium-rich salt that is one of the basic ingredients in fertilizer.
U.S. farmers need a lot of it. And fortunately for us, about 90 percent of the potash used by U.S. agriculture comes from Canada.
Canada is the world’s largest potash producer. Other major producers include Russia and Belarus—both subject to Western sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine—and China, with which Trump has been waging his trade wars.
Looking at that list, it sure was lucky for us to have our greatest friend and ally sitting right next door, willing and able to provide U.S. farmers with nearly all of the potash they need.
Or needed, past tense. Because, of course, Trump started a bizarre fight with Canada, demanding it become the 51st state, implementing senseless tariffs, and repeatedly antagonizing its leaders.
Meanwhile, Trump’s unnecessary war in Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz—the transit point for one-third of the world’s potash supply—sending other fertilizer costs soaring. Nitrogen fertilizer was hit particularly hard, adding yet another expense for already struggling farmers.
So what was Trump’s brilliant solution to this fertilizer problem? Belarus!
“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,” Trump triumphantly posted on Truth Social.
Take THAT, Canada!
Why buy fertilizer from our democratic ally next door when we can get it from a brutal, repressive, pro-Putin dictatorship thousands of miles away? Art of the deal, baby!
Except there was one small problem: Trump actually sucks at deals, and it turns out that Belarus doesn’t have any potash to sell us.
“Belarus cannot supply the United States with large volumes of potash, its leader, Alexander Lukashenko, said, seemingly refuting U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that Washington was in talks with Minsk to purchase the vital agricultural fertilizer,” reported UPI. “Even if we wanted to supply [potash] to other, Western markets, we simply do not have those volumes—everything is contracted for this year.”
And even if Belarus did have enough lying around, there’s another hilarious wrinkle: Belarus is landlocked, the European Union bans Belarusian potash imports, and any major shipments to the United States would likely have to travel through Russian ports.
So Trump’s master plan for helping U.S. farmers is to reduce their dependence on fertilizer from Canada by buying it from Vladimir Putin’s closest ally and shipping it through Russia.
So did Trump just lie, or did he … oh who cares? His brain is Swiss cheese. And those very farmers he thinks he’s talking to know that he’s talking nonsense. They know they can’t get potash anywhere, and they know it’s just one more way they’re fucked come next year’s growing season.
So on top of everything else that Republicans will face in the runup to the 2028 election, food shortages on top of historically large farm bankruptcies are now on the table.
Farm bankruptcies were already up 46 percent last year, including a 70 percent increase in the Midwest. Fertilizer is getting more expensive, fuel is getting more expensive, export markets have been disrupted, and labor is harder to find.
The best-case scenario is that farmers end up paying up the wazoo for whatever source they ultimately find, compounding inflation and prices at the grocery store.
And, as is the case with literally everything relating to Trump, it was self-inflicted. All that he had to do was literally nothing, take credit for former President Joe Biden’s economy, and things would be relatively okay and normal.
But Trump is a chaos monkey, and it’s biting his strongest supporters in the ass. So will they learn, or will they still choose to hate on trans kids over their literal way of life?
Stay tuned.
Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos
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