Introduction
On April 2, 2025, the Trump administration announced that the United States would impose a broad set of supplemental tariffs affecting imports from almost all its trading partners. The “Liberation Day” tariffs followed earlier increases, including a 25 percent tariff on imported automobiles and car parts and tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports. The Liberation Day announcement raised average tariffs on US agricultural imports to their highest levels since Congress authorized the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, in the early 1930s.
Subsequently, between April and August 2025, the Trump administration negotiated a number of framework agreements with countries that, in exchange for lower supplemental tariffs, agreed to provide market access for US goods, including agricultural goods. However, the tariffs also sparked consumer backlash against US exports in some importing countries, such as Canada, and retaliatory tariffs by China, one of the principal markets for US agricultural exports such as soybeans.
This report examines the impact of the administration’s new tariffs on US agricultural trade. First, I describe the new tariff architecture and note its uncertainties. Second, I examine the tariffs’ effects on US agricultural and food imports, which had increased to record highs in 2024. Next, I explore the impacts of the administration’s trade policy initiatives on US agricultural exports, with a focus on the Chinese and Canadian markets. Then, I consider the potential effects of the new bilateral framework agreements that the Trump administration negotiated. Some concluding thoughts are offered at the end.
A New (and Uncertain) Tariff Architecture
The past year has been characterized by a myriad of often confusing and contradictory executive orders, fact sheets, and social media statements by the White House about tariffs and other aspects of trade policy. The actions associated with those statements have included imposing supplemental tariffs, removing tariffs, and then reimposing some of the same tariffs, often within days.
The broadest tariff package was announced on April 2, 2025. President Trump unilaterally declared a national emergency and invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose a baseline 10 percent tariff on imports from virtually all countries, starting three days later, on April 5. Further, he announced that on April 9, 2025, additional “reciprocal” tariffs would be imposed on countries that contributed to large and persistent US trade deficits.
The simple average tariff rate on US agricultural imports increased from less than 4 percent, one of the lowest rates among World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries, to over 16 percent, higher than that of roughly two-thirds of the WTO membership.
Then, on April 9, the Trump administration announced that it would temporarily suspend implementation of the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to allow countries to negotiate trade agreements with the United States. The reciprocal tariffs were subsequently suspended for an additional five months. Next, on August 9, the new tariffs were implemented at a new higher average rate of 18 percent. However, on November 14, 2025, prompted by concerns over higher food prices, the White House issued a new executive order eliminating the supplemental duties on a wide range of agricultural products, notably including beef, coffee, tea, and bananas.
Shortly after the IEEPA tariffs were announced, they were challenged in court. On May 28, 2025, the US Court of International Trade found that Trump’s IEEPA tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China (to address cross-border fentanyl flows) and from the world (to address trade deficits) were beyond the authority IEEPA granted and ordered their removal.
However, the decision was appealed, and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit temporarily stayed that order, leaving the IEEPA tariffs in place.The decision was ultimately appealed to the Supreme Court, which in its February 20, 2026, decision in Learning Resources v. Trump found that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, average tariff rates on agricultural imports fell (momentarily) back to near pre–Liberation Day levels.
However, on the same day, President Trump put in place a new round of tariffs by invoking his authority under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which empowers the president to address certain fundamental international payment problems by imposing surcharges and other special import restrictions for up to 150 days. Referencing his authority under Section 122, the president imposed a 10 percent ad valorem duty on articles imported into the United States. As a result, simple average tariff rates on agricultural imports increased to 12.5 percent, lower than before the Supreme Court’s IEEPA ruling but still exceptionally high compared with their pre–Trump administration levels.
The Trump administration acted a second time to justify higher tariffs on March 17, 2026, when the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) initiated investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 regarding “acts, policies, and practices of certain economies relating to structural excess capacity and production in certain manufacturing sectors.” The 16 economies under investigation are Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
On the same day, USTR initiated a separate Section 301 investigation against 60 economies regarding acts, policies, and practices related to the failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on importing goods produced with forced labor.
If the Section 301 investigations result in positive determinations that the countries subject to the complaints are culpable, then it is widely assumed that average tariff rates for most major US trading partners will return to their levels before the Supreme Court ruling. However, while Section 301 complaints often yield positive findings, much uncertainty remains. Section 301 actions could be challenged in court—though, as Alan Wolfe has pointed out, Section 301 duties might be harder to dispose of through legal challenge, as it is clearly a tariff statute (which the court said IEEPA was not). There is also concern, as Mona Paulson has outlined, about how new tariffs implemented under Sections 122 and 301 will affect the trade framework agreements that the administration has negotiated with various countries since April 2025.
The Tariffs’ Impacts on Agricultural Imports
At first glance, tariffs appear to have had only marginal impacts on US agricultural imports. US agricultural imports totaled $213 billion in 2025, the second-highest year on record, down only marginally from 2024 ($214 billion). However, a look at import levels by month is more revealing. Imports over the first seven months of the year were, on average, 8 percent higher than in the previous year, as importers and suppliers front-loaded shipments to the United States to beat the Liberation Day tariffs’ final implementation date, in early August. Monthly imports after August 1 averaged 11 percent below their 2024 levels.
Imports from major trading partners such as the European Union and China declined, but so did imports from Mexico and Canada, even though imported goods deemed compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement were exempted from the Liberation Day tariffs.
The decline in US agricultural imports from Mexico was due largely to issues unrelated to tariffs. Live cattle imports from Mexico fell by over $1 billion in 2025 compared with 2024 due to quarantine restrictions to prevent the spread of New World screwworm, a highly contagious and deadly animal disease that was detected in 2025 in Mexican cattle herds. Tomato imports from Mexico declined by over $500 million. This decline was not because of broad changes in US tariffs; it was because of the Trump administration’s overall approach to trade policy, reflected in its decision to terminate a long-standing agreement that allowed Mexico to export tomatoes to the US, subject to an agreed-on floor price. Instead, the administration simply levied antidumping duties (also tariffs) that resulted in fewer imports.
US vegetable oil imports from Canada also fell sharply, by $1.1 billion, largely because of uncertainty about US biodiesel policies on using imported feedstocks rather than in response to higher tariffs.
On the other hand, on a product basis, imports of fruits and vegetables, processed food products, and alcoholic beverages were hit hardest by the new tariffs. However, as discussed above, in the second half of 2025, concerns about higher food prices caused the Trump administration to revisit its tariff strategy and lower or completely remove some tariffs, particularly for foodstuffs not produced in the United States (such as bananas and other tropical fruits, beef, coffee, and cocoa).
The Impacts on US Agricultural Exports
Early analyses of the Liberation Day tariffs suggested that US agricultural exports could suffer large losses if some countries decided to retaliate against US tariffs by imposing countervailing duties and other restrictions on US products. To date, China has been the only country to implement retaliatory tariffs against the United States, though consumers and other groups in some countries (for example, Canada) have boycotted some US goods. Overall, US agricultural exports fell by 3 percent in 2025 compared with 2024. Most of the overall decline in US exports is accounted for by two countries: China, where imports of US goods fell by $16 billion, and Canada, where imports from the US fell by $1.3 billion.
On March 4, 2025, in response to consumer reactions to the threat of tariffs on Canadian goods, Canadian provincial liquor boards removed US alcoholic beverages from grocery and liquor store shelves. Compared with 2024, US wine exports to Canada fell by $357 million in 2025, down 78 percent, and exports of distilled spirits fell by $149 million, down 63 percent.
China implemented retaliatory tariffs against a wide range of US agricultural products in February 2025 following US imposition of so-called fentanyl tariffs against China. For instance, China levied a supplemental tariff of 10 percent on US soybean exports, in addition to the most-favored-nation rate of 3 percent charged on soybeans from other exporters such as Brazil. US soybean exports to China in 2025 totaled just 7.4 million metric tons, almost 20 million metric tons less than in 2024 (a decline of over 72 percent).
During the first Trump administration’s trade war with China in 2018, the US offset losses in the Chinese market by selling more soybeans to the EU and other importers. In 2025, however, US exports to the EU actually declined by 7 percent as EU countries turned to Ukraine for their import needs. While US exports to the rest of the world increased almost 29 percent, total global US soybean exports declined by 27 percent.
Brazil and other soybean exporters have benefited from the Trump administration’s most recent trade war with China. Brazil’s exports to China hit record levels in 2025, topping 85 million metric tons (an increase of almost 18 percent). Argentina’s 2025 exports to China increased to 11.5 million metric tons, almost tripling their 2024 sales to that market.
How the New Trade Framework Agreements Could Affect the US Agricultural Economy
Following the Liberation Day tariff announcement, several countries began negotiations with the United States to offer trade concessions in exchange for lower supplemental tariffs. As of April 1, 2026, the United States had initiated or completed bilateral framework agreements with 18 countries and the EU.
Between 2023 and 2025, US agricultural exports to these countries averaged $56 billion, accounting for about 32 percent of global US agricultural exports. The agreements generally focus on improving agricultural market access for both countries by reducing tariffs, expanding tariff-rate quotas (the amounts of imports allowed into a country under no or very low tariffs), and streamlining border-entry procedures to reduce transportation and other shipping costs.
However, in all trade agreements, the product-specific details that have been negotiated determine the extent to which exporters’ market access is in fact increased. Those details are lacking for many bilateral agreements that the administration has claimed to have successfully negotiated. Thus, it is too early to evaluate whether those agreements will significantly increase US agricultural exports.
In many of the agreements, a concern is the absence of enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance with each country’s market access commitments. Also, the agreements all include language that suggests room for constant modification and quick termination. As Inu Manak and Allison J. Smith pointed out in a recent article, those provisions effectively mean a trade agreement no longer guarantees any certainty about a country’s trade relations with the United States.
For US farmers and food processors, the bilateral agreement with China announced on November 1, 2025, is of particular interest because China is one of the top-three destinations for US agricultural exports. According to that agreement, China agreed to “purchase at least 12 million metric tons . . . of U.S. soybeans during the last two months of 2025 and also purchase at least 25 [million metric tons] of U.S. soybeans in each of 2026, 2027, and 2028.”
These commitments are roughly equal to US soybean export volumes in 2023 and 2024, when China imported over 26 million metric tons each year. However, those export levels are far below US soybean shipments in 2020, when China imported 34 million metric tons. Moreover, China has left its retaliatory 10 percent supplemental tariff on US soybeans in place, leaving the US at a significant competitive disadvantage relative to Brazil and other suppliers.
Conclusion
One year after Liberation Day, the trade outlook for US agriculture remains murky. By the end of 2025, US agricultural imports were significantly lower than in 2024, to an important extent because of higher tariffs. However, fearing the adverse political and other consequences from tariffs’ effects on food prices, the administration granted exemptions from the Liberation Day and subsequent tariff increases for some agricultural commodities. Nonetheless, higher tariffs remain for numerous other agricultural and food products. The consequence is that domestic processors and groceries will pay higher prices for those imported goods and their domestically produced competitors. Thus, households will pay more for many of the foods they purchase and face higher living costs.
US agricultural exports have been hurt because of Chinese retaliation and consumer boycotts in Canada. It remains to be seen whether deals with China and other countries will provide increased market access for US exporters. This is not least because those deals contain “get out of jail” clauses to allow the US government to renege on major provisions of the agreements, leading the rest of the world to increasingly view the US as an untrustworthy trading partner.
Finally, China’s retaliatory tariffs on US exports remain, which means US access to the Chinese market is less in the hands of private buyers (as it was before the trade wars began) than in the hands of China’s state-owned trading companies. Those companies may have to comply with their government’s commitments on minimum soybean imports from the US between 2026 and 2028. However, they likely will have no economic incentives to exceed those obligations.
Finally, the Supreme Court decision in Learning Resources has questioned the status of these agreements, as most of them were negotiated under the IEEPA tariffs. We do not know what the impacts will be if the Trump “supplemental” tariffs are reinstated once the Section 301 investigations are completed. If 2025 is any guide, the path forward in 2026 seems likely to be almost as rocky for US agriculture.
To read the full report as it was published by the American Enterprise Institute, please click here.