In an exclusive interview with LRT, Donald Trump's special envoy for Belarus, John Coale, says Belarusian potash fertilisers could be highly beneficial for the United States and should transit through Lithuania. Coale says he hopes Lithuania will agree to bilateral talks with Belarus at deputy foreign minister level and says Alexander Lukashenko released the detained Lithuanian trucks at his urging.
The man handling Washington's relations with Alexander Lukashenko's dictatorship did not know where Belarus was when he was first asked to take the job. A year on, John Coale is addressing hundreds of Trump supporters in Dallas, fresh from another visit to Minsk and Vilnius – and giving LRT an unusually candid account of what he wants from Lithuania.
"One day, about a year ago, the State Department called and said: can you go to Belarus?" Coale recalled from the stage at a Republican gathering in Texas. His response, he told the crowd to laughter, was to ask: "Where is it?"
Coale now holds one of the more unusual diplomatic briefs in Washington – managing US relations with a regime that most Western governments refuse to engage with. In Dallas, he described telling Lukashenko bluntly that Belarus was sitting at the wrong table.
"I said: 'Listen. If you come to America and go to a high school, at lunch there's a winners' table and a losers' table. You're at the losers' table – along with Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, China. You want to be at the winners' table.'"
He said he later called Lukashenko back to add: "You're the only loser left. We're removing the other losers."
The US special envoy said that after those conversations, Lukashenko agreed to release a further 250 political prisoners.
Fertilisers, trucks and balloon smugglers
Speaking to LRT backstage after his address and before the cameras began rolling, Coale insisted that the primary motivation why the Trump administration was paying such close attention to Belarus was humanitarian – securing the release of political prisoners.
But on camera he was direct about the economic dimension of Washington's interest in Belarus. Belarusian potash fertilisers, he said, should be transiting through Lithuania to reach European and American markets.
"I've had discussions with Brooke Rollins, United States Secretary of Agriculture. We talked about it and she said it would be very beneficial to the United States if we got the fertiliser also," he said.
'Sit down and talk'
Coale made no secret of what he expects from Lithuania. He said he hoped Vilnius would agree to bilateral talks with Minsk at deputy foreign minister level, and pushed back firmly against the idea that preconditions should be set before any dialogue takes place.
"President Trump and myself do not believe in preconditions. We believe: 'get to the table, start talking.' If it doesn't work, you get up and leave, that's all," he said, adding that it was necessary to stop these things "between the two countries" that "interfere with life on both sides".
Asked how he responds to the argument that Lukashenko is a criminal dictator who has enabled Russia's invasion of Ukraine and should face conditions before any engagement, Coale was unapologetic.
"I've been talking to him for a year without preconditions, and it's been successful. The world is full of good and bad people. But the more they talk, the better it is.
President Trump went to North Korea. He even talked twice to the mayor of New York, who is diametrically opposed to Donald Trump, and they mad. You get things done with communication. You don't get things done by putting pre-existing things that have to happen," the US envoy said.
He also mentioned that Lukashenko's visit to the US is currently in the talks.
Resolving issues
On Lithuanian trucks detained in Belarus, Coale said he had raised the matter personally with Lukashenko.
"I urged him to do that, and he has done that. In the beginning there was a lot of money involved per truck to let them out, he's lowered tthat tremendously. So I think that problem is also solved," Coale said. Around 100 vehicles have since returned to Lithuania.
Asked about the smuggling balloons launched from Belarus that have repeatedly forced the closure of Vilnius airport, Coale said the problem was now under control. "Sometimes a balloon or two come over, but not like before. It is a manageable situation, unlike before."
He said Lukashenko had given assurances the launches would stop, and that a criminal element – cigarette smuggling – was behind those that continued. "A lot of them have recently been arrested to stop them from sending the balloons," he added.
The US envoy to Belarus added that he would like to see Lithuania join the Peace Board, a Trump-established international coalition of leaders currently primarily dedicated to achieving lasting peace and reconstruction in Gaza.
"I like them," he said of Lithuanian leaders. "I would like Lithuania to become part of the Board of Peace, where a lot of people communicate from different viewpoints, different countries. That could work," he said.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
