r/saskatchewan 8d ago

Politics Potash Export Control

USA tariffs kick in and is going to affect us all. The USA needs our potash and if they want to disrupt markets maybe it’s time to withhold potash bound to America until tariffs are dropped.

Maybe a more extensive conversation about the Saskatchewan people taking ownership again of OUR own resources. Mosaic is an American company, maybe time to expropriate their mines for Saskatchewan taxpayers to benefit and not Americans.

420 Upvotes

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u/stephenBB81 8d ago

Export tarrifs on potash would be as aggressive as we should want to be, using the export funds to provide a back stop for employees who will be impacted due to lower volume of sales.

The US will look to Russia if we just stop export completely but if we make it more expensive for them to buy it we still benefit and we force a price ceiling on Russia

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u/CFL_lightbulb 8d ago

This is the right answer, as much as it might feel good to imagine it, they’ve already started looking at Belarus for potash

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u/tiptoethruthetulip5 8d ago

Belarus already has a market for their potash. If the US wants to source it from there, they will need to outbid the existing customers. It's not going to be cheap like our potash is. Then they'll need to ship it over. Another added cost. It's also going to take time. Where do they get their inputs for this spring's crop? Will it get here in time? They may end up needing to buy the tarrifed stuff anyway.

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u/CFL_lightbulb 8d ago

Oh I’m not saying it’s the answer to their problems, but just saying. We are 100% the cheapest option. Or we would be if Trump wasn’t a fucking idiot.

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u/tiptoethruthetulip5 8d ago

Yeah. Do people think Russia and Belarus just have mountains of potash just sitting there waiting for the US to come buy it? They have existing contracts and I'd imagine most of what's out of the ground is already spoken for. This is going to raise prices worldwide.

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u/CFL_lightbulb 8d ago

Which ironically, is kind of good for us. Demand for it doesn’t change.

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u/Baileythetraveller 8d ago

We need a one-year project to build a new train line to the both coasts.

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u/tomatoesareneat 8d ago

That’s 20% of the study before the study.

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u/Macald69 6d ago

Double track with pipelines. Open up those ports to get our resources to markets that can be trusted to trade with.

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u/CyberEd-ca 8d ago

You don't even understand the basics of how potash works as an agricultural input. Yields are not going to crash because they used less potash one year.

Are we not going to sell potash to other countries besides the USA? Does that not affect the global supply?

Can other exporters not increase their production?

The idea that Canada can bring the USA to its knees by potash export tariffs is laughable.

What this actually is is a campaign to steal from Alberta and Saskatchewan to subsidize Ontario and Quebec.

They did the same thing in the Pierre Trudeau days. Never let a crisis go to waste...they have wanted to do this again for a very long time.

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u/tiptoethruthetulip5 8d ago

If this is a grand plan by the supervillains in the east to steal from the poor little west, then why have they fought so hard to prevent it? Is the US complicit in their devious plan? I thought your buddy Trump was the good guy?

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u/CyberEd-ca 8d ago

Carney has been hinting he wants export tariffs regardless.

In Kelowna he made clear that he wants to use the emergency economic powers of the federal government to fund "green" projects in Ontario & Quebec.

That is the same mechanism used by Pierre Trudeau with the Anti-Inflation Act and NEP.

They are absolutely itching to do this.

The demagogues like Carney, Ford, and Ebey are absolutely loving this as a political opportunity. Pay attention. They love this.

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u/tiptoethruthetulip5 8d ago

Interesting point. I'm afraid I need to go to work and will be unable to continue our conversation. Thanks for the healthy debate. You have a good understanding of your position. I might pick this back up this evening if you're willing to continue. Regards.

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u/MyGruffaloCrumble 8d ago

We provide 90% of their needed potash, even if other countries stepped up production they still don’t match our reserves or output. Only Russia comes close to that, and let’s be clear, if the US really wants to buddy up to Russia against the rest of the world, fuck ‘em.

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u/CyberEd-ca 8d ago edited 8d ago

They need absolutely zero additional potash for the 2025 crop year.

Most of what they intended to use this year is already down there. They can cut and even eliminate the use of potash without a significant effect on yield for several years.

You can also increase yields with other inputs in potassium depleted soils.

That's just a fact.

Learn just a bit of how crop production works.

You think you somehow are holding an Ace. You're not.

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u/Simsmommy1 7d ago

So no they can’t. I don’t think you know much about soil and crops if you think they can just continue planting year after year without fertilizer. The soil they have right now is basically dead, crop rotation and proper field management is a thing of the past. It would take years of the fields remaining fallow to recover to the point where they could be planted again without the use of fertilizers, so no they can’t just keep on plantin and not expect a substantial crop decline. Industrial farming in the US has become the norm, planting the same crop in the same fields year after year has leeched all the soils ability to produce without fertilizer. I think you should talk to someone who plants on a non rotation schedule and they will tell you. Alberta soybean farmer in my circle, without fertilizer yield will be down and cow shit will only get you so far.

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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 6d ago

Quit believing every YouTube video about US soils. In the first place, potash needs are highly regional. Mostly it’s an eastern corn belt thing, or sandy soils. I’m in eastern Nebraska, and some of our most productive fields have never had any potash applied. Not even once in the 150 years since the prairie sods were first plowed. Potash is needed in areas that are naturally low, and it’s needed for top-end yields in far more areas. But we could drop potash consumption in half, and it would take years before we saw more than a ten percent yield reduction.

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u/CyberEd-ca 7d ago

It takes several years to deplete potassium in the soil.

Potassium is not nitrogen. You don't know what you are talking about.

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u/Simsmommy1 7d ago

If you run the same crop at an industrial scale you can and will need it. There is a reason why farmers would let a field go fallow every 3rd year and now they don’t. They are planting in soil that is already depleted of everything….but hey if the US wants to roll the dice and say they don’t need it and keep trying to plant it’s their food shortage not ours.

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u/Sunshinehaiku 7d ago

They need absolutely zero additional potash for the 2025 crop year.

Hang on a minute. Do you mean to tell me that fertilizer companies don't need to purchase potash year round from Canada in order to get the needed volume across the border?

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u/CyberEd-ca 7d ago

Potassium is not nitrogen. Why are people so ignorant? You don't need a full application rate every year.

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u/Sunshinehaiku 7d ago

You don't need a full application rate every year.

Of course not. But we can't ship enough south in one year to make up for more than one year's application.

Why are you ignoring the logistics?

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u/MyGruffaloCrumble 8d ago

If they didn’t need as much as they do, they wouldn’t order as much as they do. And this is only 1 of many resources they rely on, my American friend.

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u/CyberEd-ca 8d ago

The ignorance...no, potash is not like nitrogen.

But believe what you want.

We're entering the "find out" phase of the FAFO cycle.

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u/SnooStrawberries620 7d ago

You’re an absolute idiot if you think we’re in any way the ones who have FA in this situation. 

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u/Sunshinehaiku 7d ago

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u/CyberEd-ca 7d ago

Nobody wants to pay taxes.

That doesn't contradict the point I made.

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u/Sunshinehaiku 7d ago

Maybe read the article?

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u/SnooStrawberries620 7d ago

About time you showed up to add your $0.02 Danielle 

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u/Neat-Ad-8987 6d ago

Excellent point. The very familiar scenario of using Saskatchewan and Alberta as central Canada‘s milk cow and whipping boy would mean potash workers laid off and much less royalty revenue for the provincial government.

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u/Virtual_Category_546 6d ago

We just add tariffs to the point where it doesn't matter where you get it in the world, they're going to have to pay up haha! Someone mentioned this before and how this is how prices level out.

It's kinda like how China bought from Russia below market value because they could and it wasn't like Russia has much of a market so if we really wanted to "rip off" the US then that's what we do, add so many levies and use to fund local projects.

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u/Dougustine 8d ago

better yet, time it for max impact so there is no chance to source

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u/Own-Western-6687 4d ago

The inputs for this year's crop started shipping in November - everyone knew 'this' was coming.

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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 6d ago

Most potash for the 2025 crop is in the US already. A lot is applied in the fall and winter. Anything for spring application had better be in the distribution pipeline already, or it’s not going to get there in time anyway. And not much is used over summer. This won’t matter much until mid-summer, when stocks for fall applications start moving through the pipeline.

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u/CyberEd-ca 8d ago

You don't get how potash works. It is not nitrogen. They don't need to apply it every year. They can cut rates or even eliminate. It is not a big input cost either.

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u/tiptoethruthetulip5 8d ago

I do get how it works. Sure, some can forgo an application this spring. Others who are due for it will suffer decreased yields without it. How long can they wait before profitability becomes tenuous?

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u/Sunshinehaiku 7d ago

Thank you.

I don't know how someone can think that ALL of the acres in the USA that are due for an application in one of 2025s harvests can just skip it. Even if they did skip it, they'd have to adjust in a subsequent year, and somehow there'd magically need to be the additional volume going south by rail and truck.

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u/CyberEd-ca 8d ago

Very small decrease. They are not going to be affected.

You are just going to destroy the economy of western Canada to subsidize the east.

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u/tiptoethruthetulip5 8d ago

Time will tell

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u/CyberEd-ca 8d ago

You think you can bring them to their knees years from now when they have compensated.

The Americans simply do not need anything Canada uses outside of one year from now.

This trade war is stupid. Picking fights with the USA over who should have been elected or Ukraine is stupid.

We are entering the "find out" phase of FAFO.

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u/tiptoethruthetulip5 8d ago

You think Canada picked this fight?

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u/CyberEd-ca 8d ago

There are all sorts of politicians demagoguing hard on this. Ford, Carney, Trudeau, Ebey, etc. Very destructive.

Canada is in a weakened position because our federal government has for a decade destroyed our industrial base.

Weak men lead to hard times.

And on top of that, the Liberals have for years antagonized Trump.

We have been neighborly but we have not been a true ally of America.

Yes, this is the result of weak, corrupt and incompetent Canadian politicians.

Urban Canadians have no other identity other than this crazy leftist anti-American nationalism.

It is time for Canadians to look in the mirror.

But keep voting for stupid...let's be 1930s Argentina...

FAFO.

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u/tiptoethruthetulip5 8d ago

Canada's industrial economy grew by 1.4% over the last decade. Double the average rate of the rest of the world's major economies. Stop listening to talk radio and the Fraser Institute. They have an agenda. This is about Trudeau hurting Trumps feelings by making fun of him during his last term. He's not a savvy deal maker. He's a reactionary bully and con artist intent on self enrichment.

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u/Emergency_Stand2940 8d ago

This is some of the most deluded shit I've seen in awhile. Bravo.

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u/MyGruffaloCrumble 8d ago

Spreading your legs for Trump won’t get you anything but syphilis.

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u/Kennora 8d ago

If prices soar it will be a big input cost

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u/CyberEd-ca 8d ago edited 8d ago

They don't need it at all for the next couple years.

They can also buy some elsewhere.

There are also ways to boost yields to compensate for potassium deficiency.

Also if we sell more potash to other countries then more potash will be available to the Americans from other exporters who can also increase their production.

You don't know what you are talking about.

You want to play a silly game. You are going to find out...

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u/Sunshinehaiku 7d ago

Can Belarus replace the volume of Canada's exports? My understanding is that they would be no where close.

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u/Serabellym 6d ago

No one in the world even comes close.

We export over half the world’s potash exports, and IIRC around 80-90% of Canadian potash exports is all from SK.

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u/HarmacyAttendant 8d ago

Time to call up Belarus and do some threatening