Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko announced Sept. 29 that he had reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin for their two countries to build a nitrogen plant. Good, but more interesting still was his suggestion that bringing the United States be brought into the project, Belarus’s news agency, Belta, reported.

Lukashenko’s remarks were reported to have been made while speaking at a meeting with the Governor of Russia’s Ulyanovsk Oblast Aleksey, Russkikh, in Minsk that day, but he spoke as if he was addressing some Americans who were present.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] and I agreed that Gazprom will join us in implementing the project to build a nitrogen plant,” the Belarus President announced. “We should offer it to the Americans. They want fertilizers, including nitrogen ones, so let us build it together. Using your technology. You [the U.S.], Gazprom and Belarus. We have already selected a site, with all necessary networks in place. If not, we will build it with Gazprom and the Russians and sell the finished product.”

That’s quite an interesting offer, given the combination of U.S. fertilizer needs, Lukashenko’s close relations with President Putin, and his positive relationship with President Trump. In the early days of Trump’s second administration, Lukashenko served as a confidential backchannel for U.S. contacts with Russia, including on the possibilities for a Trump-Putin summit, a channel in which US Ambassador to Belarus, John Coale, played a leading role.

A week before, on Sept. 21, Trump had posted on Truth Social that “the United States is working on a massive Deal with respect to the purchase of potash from Belarus,” at a good price, he added. That “massive deal” ran into the problem that Belarus already had contracts for its available potash, although Lukashenko offered that Belarus would work things out when possible. Now he has now put on the table a fertilizer project that Belarus can deliver on, which would also serve to crack U.S. sanctions against Russia.