President Donald Trump unveiled a series of tariffs on Wednesday afternoon during his “Make America Wealthy Again” event in the White House Rose Garden.
Using his International Emergency Economic Powers Act authority, he announced the U.S. will impose a 10% tariff on all countries that will take effect April 5, 2025, at 12:01 a.m. EDT.
Trump will also impose an individualized reciprocal higher tariff on the countries with which the U.S. has the largest trade deficits to take effect April 9, 2025, at 12:01 a.m. EDT. All other countries will continue to be subject to the original 10% tariff baseline.
Livestock Industry Weighs In On Announcement
During the event, which was broadcast live across the U.S. and abroad, Trump held up a chart showing specific countries in line for what he described as reciprocal tariffs.
“ We will charge them approximately half of what they are — and have been — charging us,” he said. “So, the tariffs will not be a full reciprocal. I could have done that, I guess, but it would have been tough for a lot of countries.”
Joe Schuele, U.S. Meat Export Federation senior vice president of communications, responding to the announcement in a prepared statement, said the president’s executive order provides more clarity on the administration’s approach to reciprocal tariffs.
“USMEF’s main concern is obviously how our trading partners will react,” Schuele said. “We are hopeful that they will focus on eliminating barriers to trade rather than imposing restrictive countermeasures.”
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Ethan Lane also issued a statement after attending President Donald J. Trump’s announcement at the White House.
“For too long, America’s family farmers and ranchers have been mistreated by certain trading partners around the world,” Lane said. “President Trump is taking action to address numerous trade barriers that prevent consumers overseas from enjoying high-quality, wholesome American beef.
“NCBA will continue engaging with the White House to ensure fair treatment for America’s cattle producers around the world and optimize opportunities for exports abroad,” Lane added.
A partial list of the countries Trump called out and specific tariff percentages to be imposed include:
- China - 34%
- European Union - 20%
- Vietnam - 46%
- Taiwan - 32%
- Japan - 24%
- India - 26%
- South Korea - 25%
- Thailand - 36%
- Switzerland - 31%
- Indonesia - 32%
Some Trade Partners Inhibit U.S. Opportunity
A recent article in Drovers, Cattle and Hog Markets See Opposite Impact of Tariffs, shows that tariffs on U.S. beef and cattle imports can have a net effect of tightening supplies, and that’s price positive.
Numerous countries are imposing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers on American beef that inhibit opportunities to export product, added NCBA’s Lane who offered five examples:
- Australia has sold roughly $29 billion of beef to American consumers. Meanwhile, the U.S. has not been able to sell $1 of fresh U.S. beef in Australia due to non-scientific barriers, Lane said.
- Vietnam places a 30% tariff on U.S. beef while Australian beef faces no such tariff.
- Thailand places a 50% tariff on U.S. beef.
- Brazil and Paraguay have a history of dangerous foot-and-mouth disease, but despite overwhelming evidence of their animal health risk, the Biden administration continued to allow U.S. market access to Brazil and Paraguay.
- The European Union places numerous non-scientific “Green Deal” restrictions on American beef, limiting market opportunities.
Grain Growers Brace For More Financial Pain
Potentially caught in the middle of the new tariff battles are those farmers who produce cattle and grain. That describes Chase Dewitz, who shared his perspective on AgriTalk. His family operation includes more than 34,000 acres of pasture, row crops, 1,500 head of beef cows and a feedlot. His current concerns revolve around grain exports.
“I think there’s going to be some pain here for a while, and the biggest thing is these export markets. We have handed China to Brazil, and we’re just pushing them away more and more, and we’ve allowed this to happen,” said Dewitz, who is based in central North Dakota, near Steele.
During the 2018 trade war with China, U.S. agriculture experienced more than $27 billion in losses, according to the American Soybean Association. The association says the U.S. has yet to fully recover its former market share of soybean exports to China, the world’s No. 1 buyer of the commodity.
“The policies of the last 30, 40, 50 years have just pushed this thing so far,” Dewitz said. “And without some major pain, I don’t know how you reset that.”
Other grain growers expressed similar nervousness about tariffs and declining optimism in the Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer for March. Forty-three percent of the farmers surveyed cited shifting trade policy as the No. 1 driver of their negative outlook.
In addition, farmers were pessimistic about the outlook for the future of ag export markets, particularly for grain. Five-year expectations for U.S. exports reached an all-time low for the survey, according to James Mintert, the barometer’s principal investigator and director of Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture.
A recent AgWeb poll that found more than half of farmers don’t support Trump’s use of tariffs.
Dewitz said U.S. farmers want changes that will bring about fairer trade agreements but no one likes financial pain.
“Everyone says, ‘this needs to be fixed,’ and then on the backside they say, ‘as long as it doesn’t affect me,’” he said. “Well, it’s going to affect everybody.”
Listen to the full conversation with farmers and producers, including Dewitz, on “AgriTalk” here: Farmer Forum - AgriTalk
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