The plan was pitched to the president a few months ago by John Coale, his envoy to Eastern Europe and a former Trump lawyer, and had been kept secret, according to the Atlantic.
Trump approved US officials to strike lucrative deals for Russian oil, diesel and rare earth minerals, even as Moscow keeps bombing Ukrainian cities.
The backdoor deal could trigger outrage from Ukrainian and European leaders who fear that revenue flowing to the Kremlin will be used to bankroll Putin’s invasion. The president could also face backlash from his Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
It comes just weeks after Trump signed a law placing severe sanctions on Russia and any country that trades with it.
Coale has spent more than a year road-testing the formula in Belarus, where he secured the release of roughly 500 political prisoners from dictator Alexander Lukashenko‘s jails in return for sanctions relief.
That groundwork paved the way for the ‘massive’ fertilizer deal Trump trumpeted on Truth Social last week, and Coale told The Atlantic that Russia is also at the table because the fertilizer would likely have to be shipped out through Russian territory.
Washington has largely avoided trade deals involving Russia since the invasion of Ukraine.
‘All this stuff works toward the possibility of peace,’ Coale told the Atlantic.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to do everything he could to block any lifting of Russia sanctions before the war ends, but admitted it would be tough to compete with the pull of Russian money.
Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya warned the swaps simply reward the regimes for taking hostages, telling The Atlantic: ‘They can always arrest more people.’
The White House this week nominated Coale as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, a post that will force him to face senators before he can take it up.
Trump returned to the White House last year after repeatedly boasting on the campaign trail that he could end the war within 24 hours.