By: Editorial Team, StoneX Media
The countervailing duty order that governed North American phosphate imports from Morocco and Russia since 2021 created a trade impasse that both sides held to strictly. For five years, the suspension of Moroccan supply reshaped import flows at a time when global fertilizer markets were already under sustained pressure. The administration's decision to suspend those duties arrives in a market that has shifted considerably, with North American diammonium phosphate prices now sitting at the lowest level among major global benchmarks. The economic gap between the policy announcement and its likely market impact is precisely what growers and supply chain participants are working to assess.
With a career spanning commodity risk management and crop input markets, Josh Linville serves as Vice President of Fertilizer at StoneX, leading the firm's global fertilizer department and trade desk. His work covers the supply chains that connect Moroccan phosphate export decisions to North American pricing, as well as the seasonal dynamics of domestic fill programs that shape grower input costs across the crop year.
The original countervailing duty order was established following a 2020 petition requesting protections against phosphate imports from Morocco and Russia, and it came into force in 2021. For those five years, Morocco maintained an unambiguous position. "Morocco has been sitting there saying, we will not ship you any phosphate until this duty is gone. They held true to their word." The suspension, effective for eight months or until the five-year sunset review concludes, removes that barrier. Linville expects Morocco to send some volume as a gesture of reciprocity, but in his view the response will be driven by goodwill rather than any compelling commercial pull from the North American market.
Last week's release of anhydrous ammonia summer fill and fall prepay programs generated strong initial buyer response, with manufacturers moving quickly to raise prices and scale back available volume once the first wave committed. The fill price landed slightly above Linville's expectations, though within the range he considered workable. "Uptake was very, very strong. The market said yes, these numbers work. We are going to take a massive layer." A separate variable running in the background is access through the Strait of Hormuz. Should progress toward regional stability continue, the return of Iranian, Qatari and Saudi Arabian supply could weigh meaningfully on global anhydrous values and, in turn, on inland North American prices heading into fall.
"UAN will not get used in large part until spring of 27. There's a lot more calendar there. There's a lot more months and days for the market to change substantially." That timeline defines the central challenge for manufacturers when UAN fill programs open in the first week of July. Growers purchasing nitrogen now face a longer runway of market uncertainty than anhydrous buyers did, and with corn prices already declining, the appetite for early commitments is expected to be more limited. Linville notes the distinction clearly. Anhydrous was a relatively straightforward sell given the proximity of fall application, while nitrogen heads into its fill season facing a more conservative and skeptical buyer base.
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--- Written by Gus Farrow, Senior Manager, StoneX Media
--- Expert: Josh Linville, Vice President of Fertilizer, StoneX
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A corn rally has left fertilizer values sitting near the cheap end of their multi-year range, and that gap is closing from the bottom up rather than the top down. Josh Linville traces how farmer buying, retailer restocking and manufacturer pricing combine to end an affordability window, and why phosphate has almost no room to fall.
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