U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a “massive deal” to purchase Belarusian potash is big news, but not yet a breakthrough. With no volumes, timetable, or transport route specified, it appears primarily designed as domestic political messaging: a promise of cheaper fertilizer to U.S. farmers ahead of the midterm elections, as well as another instrument to pressure Canada, currently the dominant U.S. supplier.

For Minsk, its renewed engagement with the West reflects three strategic concerns: restoring Belarus’s traditional role as an East-West transit country, reducing its growing dependence on Russia (including on Russian export routes), and hedging against the danger of regional escalation as the war in Ukraine threatens to spread.

War is on everyone’s mind right now in Minsk. Belarusian interlocutors privately express frustration with Moscow, which continues to request additional assistance, even though the war has undermined the logic of the two countries’ mutual defense doctrine. With the Russian armed forces fully absorbed in Ukraine, Minsk doubts that Moscow could defend Belarus as the doctrine envisages. This helps explain contested president Alexander Lukashenko’s repeated readiness checks, military exercises, and references to possible mobilization.

Minsk considers the war a strategic impasse. Neither side can win, and neither the United States nor Europe has found a way out. That gives Belarus more room for maneuver than in 2022, but also sharpens its sense of vulnerability. European defense spending is rising, NATO’s military presence along its eastern flank has expanded, and exercises have increased in scale.

Belarusian interlocutors estimated that approximately 21,000 foreign troops are now deployed close to the country’s borders. Minsk does not describe NATO as hostile, but nor does it regard it as an exclusively defensive alliance.

Belarusian officials also complain about the scarcity of reliable communication channels with neighboring states, claiming that the country’s strategic alliance with Russia does not imply identical interests. As a proof of Minsk’s support for deescalation and an immediate ceasefire, they cite Lukashenko reportedly passing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s messages to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, as well as sustaining humanitarian and security contacts, including a recent high-level Ukrainian visit to Minsk.

Belarus’s anxiety is understandable given that the country could not defend itself in a wider regional war. Its flat terrain provides few natural barriers, while modern surveillance makes traditional partisan warfare increasingly unrealistic. Minsk is therefore pursuing a three-track hedge: relying on the Russian nuclear umbrella, deepening security ties with China, and cautiously reopening channels with the West. Joint Belarusian-Chinese special-forces exercises is a sign of this diversification within—rather than away from—the alliance with Russia.

Belarus has adapted to sanctions and stabilized its economy, but at the cost of greater reliance on Russian markets and infrastructure. It understands that restoring prosperity—and recovering some national room for maneuver—requires reopening Western transit routes.

At home, however, the threat of regional escalation has strengthened Lukashenko. The recent confrontation with Kyiv has reinforced public perceptions that there is a genuine risk of Belarus finding itself fully at war. This has further consolidated the post-2022 social contract, under which security—and Lukashenko’s ability to keep Belarus out of the war—has become the regime’s principal source of legitimacy.

Lukashenko is aging, but his political instincts have not faded. He now exercises greater control over the country than at any point since 2020, when mass protests broke out following the presidential election and were violently crushed. Many opposition-minded Belarusians have emigrated, while the exiled opposition appears to retain little influence inside Belarus, particularly since aligning itself closely with Kyiv.

The business community has likewise consolidated around Lukashenko as the country’s unquestioned center of gravity. Loyalty and access shape the distribution of opportunities and profits.

Negotiating from a position of domestic strength, Minsk wants Europe to engage with the regime as it is, much as Washington has already begun to do. Repression continues, although officials portray the remaining cases as criminal rather than political. This “legitimization first” approach remains the principal obstacle to broader European engagement. The EU continues to support the opposition leader in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, and above all views Belarus through the prism of the war in Ukraine, in which it regards Minsk as a co-aggressor.

Washington takes a different view, regarding the preservation of Belarusian sovereignty as an objective in itself, even if the country remains authoritarian and closely allied with Russia. Washington doesn’t expect Minsk to change sides, but is rather testing whether selective economic engagement can limit Belarus’s further absorption into Russia while securing additional prisoner releases.

Progress has slowed because Minsk remains dissatisfied with the limited practical results. Restoring potash transit through Lithuania has been Lukashenko’s priority from the outset, and he does not believe that Washington cannot persuade Vilnius to reopen the route in defiance of EU sanctions. The United States has offered the release of $43 million in potash related payment frozen at Citibank, an offer Minsk considered insufficient.

Lukashenko used U.S. envoy John Coale’s latest visit to reiterate what Belarusian officials had argued for months: U.S. sanctions relief has produced little tangible economic benefit. Western banks continue to block Belarus-related payments even when the paperwork is formally compliant; the national airline Belavia remains unable to operate normally in Western markets; and potash transit through Lithuania remains closed.

As a result, only twenty-five prisoners were released in September, compared with 250 released for Coale’s last visit in March. A larger group, expected to stay in Belarus after their release rather than being deported like some earlier groups, remains in jail. Minsk is unwilling to deliver the full humanitarian component of the arrangement until sanctions relief produces tangible economic results. Coale nevertheless expressed confidence that further talks would secure hundreds more releases. Lithuania, meanwhile, maintains that continuing repression and Belarus’s support for Russia’s war do not justify broader EU sanctions relief.

There are indications that Washington is now looking for a way through this impasse. Prime Minister Alexander Turchin’s presence during Coale’s meeting with Lukashenko elevated the economic component of the negotiations. Coale subsequently met Lithuania’s new prime minister and visited Latvia, while Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys discussed economic issues in Washington. These contacts suggest growing U.S. recognition that bilateral sanctions exemptions are of little use without European cooperation.

Trump’s announcement that the United States was working on a “massive deal” to purchase Belarusian potash brought this effort into public view. But the announcement should not be mistaken for a completed agreement. It seems designed as pre-midterm campaign messaging: an attempt to show disgruntled American farmers that the administration can secure cheaper fertilizer while putting additional pressure on Canada, which supplies the overwhelming majority of U.S. potash imports.

Lukashenko himself exposed the commercial limits of the proposal by saying that Belarusian output is largely committed. Shipping potash to the United States through Russian ports would also be unlikely to undercut Canadian supplies once transport costs are included. For Minsk, however, the destination matters less than the route. Restoring transit through Lithuania would reduce Belarus’s dependence on Russian ports. State-owned Belaruskali retains a 30 percent stake in Klaipėda’s Bulk Cargo Terminal and is pursuing international arbitration against Lithuania over losses arising from the termination of potash transit in 2022.

The obstacles are formidable. Belarusian potash remains under EU sanctions, currently effective until February 2027. Lithuania sees little reason to reopen transit: Security is more important in the current context, and Belarus remains integrated into Russia’s military infrastructure. Baltic port capacity is also under pressure as Russian grain is redirected from the Black Sea following Ukrainian attacks on Russian shipping. Ironically, Russian grain may now be competing for the capacity that Minsk hopes to use to reduce its dependence on Russia.

Other routes for potash exports are being explored, including possible transit through Ukraine as part of a wider arrangement involving a maritime ceasefire and the reopening of Odesa. Such an agreement would be far more consequential, but also far more difficult, than Trump’s proposed purchase.

Minsk likewise hopes that the forthcoming International Civil Aviation Organization review will reopen discussion of air links with the West. Even a more favorable assessment would not automatically restore European overflight rights, but it could strengthen the case for selected routes and technical cooperation.

U.S.-Belarus engagement will continue, increasingly through consultations with Lithuania, Latvia, and other European governments. The recent meeting between Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and his Belarusian counterpart Maxim Ryzhenkov was an acknowledgment that Minsk is fulfilling some of Warsaw’s conditions and that Poland recognizes the deteriorating regional security situation. But no “massive deal” or European rapprochement is likely any time soon. Trump’s announcement is politically useful in Washington and strategically attractive to Minsk, yet its implementation depends on Europeans who still view Belarus primarily in terms of the war in Ukraine. The real test is not whether America will buy Belarusian potash, but whether Washington can persuade Europe that limited economic engagement would strengthen Belarusian sovereignty without legitimizing Lukashenko’s rule.