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Fertilizer expert optimistic after ITC tariff rejection

A fertilizer market expert says the recent International Trade Commission decision rejecting new tariffs on urea ammonium nitrate from Russia, Trinidad and Tobago is good news for farmers. Josh Linville with StoneX says, “It means more competition and hopefully, lower prices.”

Linville tells Brownfield when Russia invaded Ukraine, the talk about not doing business with Russia quickly silenced. “When the war started, they drew a very firm and clear line and said we will not cross it. Well, once they stepped away from the podium, they started to look at it and figured out we need to raise food, and those lines got really blurry really, really quickly. Here in the U.S. when we updated our May import-export numbers, looking at urea which had no duty and no case against it, Russia was our number one supplier.”

Linville believes the lack of new tariffs on UAN can lead to changes in other fertilizer markets including phosphorus. “Not that we’re going to see the ITC just come out and vote no, but I think the challenges are going to start piling up. And, I also think there’s going to be a lot of pressure on Biden administration, seeing if there’s some way they can do an executive order to do away with that.”

Linville says UAN is still a nitrogen product, so if urea or anhydrous prices start to rise, UAN will likely rise, too.