In yet another lie, US president Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media site, that he had “very good news for our Farmers and Ranchers”.

He continued: “The United States is working on a massive Deal with respect to the purchase of Potash from Belarus. The pricing would be substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada.” Canada provides, tariff-free, about 80 per cent of potash imports used in US agriculture. Its price has risen principally because of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Israeli-American war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

For some time, the Trump administration has been playing economic footsie with the Belarus dictatorship under the smokescreen of negotiating the release of political prisoners. Somewhat to Trump’s dismay, Belarus’s president Alexander Lukashenko announced that there is no available fertiliser to export to the US. The “massive deal” is a complete fantasy. Eyeing the agricultural vote in the midwest, and conscious of the cost of inputs such as fertiliser and diesel, Trump concocted the prospect of a non-existent deal with landlocked Belarus to export fertiliser through Russia in a forlorn attempt to prop up his sagging popularity and avoid electoral catastrophe in midterm congressional elections now less than six weeks away.

Diesel is a major problem for Trump. It has rocketed........

© The Irish Times