There has been a lot of talk about the impact that Donald Trump’s return to the White House will have for the ag industry. Josh Linville, Vice President of Fertilizer with StoneX, believes that Trump will do far more to encourage domestic fertilizer production here in the U.S.—which would drive down the costs for farmers.
“I am hopeful. I’m more hopeful than I would have been under a Harris administration,” says Linville.
In 2022, President Biden had announced that $500 million of federal funds would be used to kickstart the production of farm fertilizer products in the U.S. At the time, Linville said that Biden’s gesture was nice, but in reality, the estimated cost for building a fully functional fertilizer production facility in the U.S. would cost around $15-$18 billion dollars.
Linville believes President Trump will likely encourage domestic fertilizer production through tax breaks and loosening of federal restrictions in order to lessen our dependency on exports.
“I am looking forward and thinking there’s a better chance that some of these environmental restrictions and some of these government red tapes that are out are rescinded and give the manufacturers hope to say, ‘Hey, I can proceed with this project and actually have some backing.’ It’s a best case scenario, and plus, I like producing it at home,” says Linville.
Because of the current EPA and U.S. government restrictions that had been put into place, that’s why Linville says almost all of our farm fertilizer comes from overseas. Many of the world’s major fertilizer exporters are Russia, China, and Iran.
“A lot of people don’t realize that China typically will export about 5.5 million tons per year of fertilizer products. Iran exports about 4.8 to 4.9 million, so they are very close to the same,” he says.
“When you start talking about this ‘tit-for-tat’ situation going on with Israel—if those tensions continue to flare up, all of a sudden we start getting into a more of a direct confrontation between the two countries—we talk about how harmful it is losing China. If you lose Iran, it’s losing a second China—it’s major.”
Another factor that could impact the price of farm fertilizer over the next four years is the relationship between Trump and Putin.
“Trump and Putin seem to have a very respectful relationship between the two of them. We hope that will play out in our favor and we hope the Ukrainian invasion will go away. If it does, we don’t need to worry about it. But, if they start butting heads—and let’s face it, those are two very big egos—all of a sudden, what is one big Trump’s big weapons? It’s tariffs. Russia is one of the biggest exporters of phosphate, potash, and nitrogen. If we start to tariff them—we’ve already stopped them on their phosphate flow—but if we start blocking potash and we start blocking nitrogen, it’s going to get more painful before it gets better,” says Linville.
CLICK BELOW to hear C.J. Miller’s full conversation with Josh Linville, Vice President of Fertilizer with StoneX, from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) convention in Kansas City.
