It was announced that the U.S., Canada and Mexico will not renew the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement after the initial agreement expired on 1 July 2026. The previous 16-year renewal process will come to an end, and instead there will be an annual review of the USMCA trade relationship dynamics. There are mixed feelings about the USMCA agreement across the board, but agriculture and fertilizers will feel the effects from any outcome of the USMCA agreement going forward. For the U.S. and Canada, fertilizer trading and procurement are outstanding issues for the two countries’ trade relationship, not to mention Canadian and American farmers that depend on fertilizers to grow food. That’s why there’s been a consistent discussion on the “two-way street” between the U.S. and Canada.
Marnel Jones of The Mosaic Company Canada illustrated the two-way street in her comments about the trade relationship: “The U.S farmers need us, as do we need phosphate from America.” President of the Saskatchewan Mining Association Pam Schwann was more blunt about Canadian potash demand in the U.S. market: “Our potash helps make the agricultural community in the United States stronger, more competitive.” The USMCA debate is and should be centered around one important theme in U.S.-Canada relations: Potash.
Canadian potash remains free from the specter of Trump’s tariff war. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer specifically pointed to fertilizers as one of the areas where both the U.S. and Canada agree on trade. While the ongoing combat over the future of the USMCA agreement revolves more around automobile manufacturing and the minerals and commodities associated with that supply chain, the USMCA discussion obviously puts agriculture and fertilizers at the front and center as well. Canada and Mexico will continue to deepen cooperation with China in the agriculture sector, as China is too big of a market to ignore for them. The U.S. should respond in kind, given that American farmers want access to the China market again as well, but the geopolitical trends around U.S.-China relations continue to change. Who knows what will happen next.
During all of this, however, one fact is clear: the U.S. relies on potash imports. The chart below shows that imports of muriate of potash (MOP) make up the largest source of U.S. fertilizer imports by year.
The past ten years have been exceptional for potash import demand in the U.S. market. Since 2016, MOP imports into the U.S. have risen by over 5 million tons. The U.S. now has average demand of annual MOP imports at above 10 million tons per year. 2024 reached the highest level at more than 15 million tons of imported MOP. The current year 2026 already shows MOP imports at above 5 millions tons.
So, regardless of how the Trump Administration feels about the U.S. position on USMCA, or where China is going to buy its agricultural commodities in the future, the U.S. government and agribusiness sector must cooperate on a long-term fertilizer strategy. The Trump Administration took another big step in that direction by unlocking USD $500 million of government funds to accelerate large-scale fertilizer manufacturing projects already underway or stalled in the U.S. The wording on fertilizer procurement has changed, too, as domestic fertilizer production is now being referred to as “strategic infrastructure” for the U.S. government. In other words, evolve or die, or shall we say, produce or starve?
Read more about potash and phosphate in the Growth Minerals Review for July
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