Could Canada cut off potash to the U.S.? It’s a ‘high stakes game of chicken,’ says an expert

As the trade war between Canada and the U.S. continues to escalate, potash has emerged as a potential bargaining chip.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the resource is “one of the most powerful tools” Canada has in negotiations while speaking at a press conference in Vaughan on Wednesday, adding that the U.S. agricultural sector would be “dead overnight” if Canada were to cut it off. “Everyone in the world wants our potash,” he said.

National Post spoke to Akaash Maharaj, a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, who confirmed that potash has become “indispensable” to the American agriculture sector, which is “currently dependent on Canadian exports.”

But the reality of whether Canada could restrict supply to the U.S. is complicated, and comes with consequences for both sides of the border.

Potash is a group of minerals and chemicals that contain potassium. Its main form, after deep-earth mining and milling, is potassium chloride (KCl), almost all of which is used as a fertilizer to improve crop root strength, disease resistance, water retention and yield by protecting and restoring soil fertility. This makes it essential to global food security.

Small amounts are sometimes used in other products like detergents, soaps, water softeners, snow and ice melters, and pharmaceutical products.

Canada is the world’s largest producer and exporter of potash, and the United States is the leading destination of its potash exports, with 53 per cent sent south of the border in 2024, according to Natural Resources Canada. The U.S. also gets a small amount of potash from domestic production and other countries, such as Israel and Russia.

Data from Trading Economics, which is based on the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade, shows that Canada exported $3.84B worth of fertilizer to the U.S. in 2025 out of a total of $408.99B in exports. Israel exported a much smaller amount of fertilizer to the U.S., valued at $271.60M, in 2025.

Meanwhile, the U.S. produces 0.5 per cent of the world’s potash, and imports more than 80 per cent of the potash it uses.

Maharaj tells National Post that if Canada were to place export tariffs on potash, or otherwise reduce exports, it could “starve out the American agricultural sector.”

He says it would be a particularly bad moment for the U.S.’s access to be restricted, because they have few other potash suppliers due to sanctions placed on Belarus and Russia in recent years.

Meanwhile, the war in Iran has meant that global competition for fertilizers and fertilizer products has skyrocketed at the very moment when the supply of potash from Russia and Belarus has been choked off.

If Canada were to cut off its potash supply, “it would provoke a crisis in the United States,” Maharaj says, adding to spiralling food costs.

However, he adds, it would also have a significant impact on potash producers in Canada, because most of our potash goes to the U.S.

And Trump may retaliate in ways that could cause significant harm to the Canadian economy, such as by increasing the level of tariffs that he has already named from 50 per cent to an even higher number, or applying new tariffs to additional products.

“I suspect that if we were to place export taxes on potash, Trump would impose tariffs across the board on absolutely everything,” Maharaj says. “It is a high stakes game of chicken.”

The federal government has not addressed the possibility of leveraging potash in the trade war, and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has said the province will not support restricting U.S. access to potash and oil.

Speaking with reporters Wednesday in Prince Albert, he said: “What we as a province cannot, and will not, support is any kind of export tariff on our natural resources or any of our resources that are being exported to the U.S. or through the U.S.”

The premier added that restricting access to potash would be a “tremendous economic hit” to the province, risking Canadian job losses and causing farmers on both sides of the border to suffer as a result.

“I want to be clear. As a government of Saskatchewan, we are supportive of these very targeted countermeasures that are in place, but only when those tariffs are focused and targeted to have a minimal impact on Canadian industries and families,” Moe said.

Canada’s 10 active potash mines are located in Saskatchewan.

Some have called for export tariffs on SK exports like oil and potash.

Here’s why that doesn’t work. pic.twitter.com/O5aIvVuPF7

— Scott Moe (@PremierScottMoe) August 26, 2026

Canada has already dropped retaliatory tariffs on seafood, with a late-night statement posted to social media by the federal finance department stating that move was based on feedback “to protect against broader economic harms.”

Saint John—St. Croix Conservative MP John Williamson was quick to point out that it would be New Brunswick’s seafood processors that will be paying the tariffs on Maine imports. “We import U.S. seafood, mainly from Maine, to process it here and send it straight back to U.S. market for sale,” he said.

“The costs to New Brunswick companies just increased an astounding 25 per cent. These tariffs imposed by the Carney government will backfire on us and hurt jobs in New Brunswick with zero benefit to our local seafood harvesters.”

pic.twitter.com/r4CU6EfypT

— Finance Canada (@FinanceCanada) August 27, 2026

Meanwhile, Scott Moe came under fire for his comments from provincial NDP trade and export development critic Kim Breckner, who told news reporters on Wednesday that “it benefits nobody to stand up and publicly decry what we will and will not do.” She added: “He’s taken the bullets out of the gun.”

The disagreement comes after Carney reportedly asked Liberal MPs to avoid escalating tensions or provoking the Trump administration in public, according to Toronto Star. Anonymous sources told the outlet that Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc asked MPs to be careful with what they say on social media, and to decline requests to talk trade on American networks like CNN.

Russia and Belarus are currently the only other major players in the potash market, according to Natural Resources Canada, but China, Israel and a handful of other nations are also small producers.

Canada leads the world in potash exports, shipping about 22.9 million tonnes in 2024, which accounts for over 39 per cent of global exports.

Ford suggested at the Wednesday press conference that the U.S. would have to look to Russia as an alternative source. “The president has a choice: either be fair to us, or deal with Russia,” he said. “Get your potash off Russia. See how well they treat you.”

Meanwhile, Moe said the U.S. would likely turn to nations such as Belarus for the resource.

Belarus is no longer supplying any potash to the U.S. and, while Russia can continue due to exemptions, “even at its greatest capacity, Russia could not make up for the potash that the United States would lose from Canada if we were to cut off our supply altogether,” Maharaj says.