President Donald Trump issued an executive order Friday rolling back tariffs on certain agricultural products, including beef, tomatoes and coffee.
“Many of the announced trade deals and ongoing negotiations involve countries that produce substantial volumes of agricultural products that are not grown or produced in sufficient quantities in the United States,” the White House said in a document circulated to reporters about the order.
Friday’s announcement represents the most significant shift in the “reciprocal tariffs” that the president announced on April 2. It comes after administration officials signaled changes aimed at addressing consumer complaints about high grocery prices were in the offing.
The move exempts scores of common agricultural goods from the tariffs, including tea, orange and pineapple juices, bananas and cashew nuts.
A White House spokesman explained the move as a long-planned part of the administration’s strategy. But it comes after Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, the president’s chief trade negotiator, told the Senate Finance Committee in April that the president planned no “exclusions and exemptions” from the historic tariffs.
“The Trump administration is committed to pursuing a nimble, nuanced, and multi-faceted strategy on trade and tariffs,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said in a statement. “President Trump’s September 5th executive order specifically laid out various natural resources and agricultural products not produced in the United States that could be eligible for tariff-free treatment.”
The Trump administration has maintained its stance that tariff costs aren’t passed onto consumers. But an early April analysis from Yale University found that price increases from tariffs would cost the typical U.S. household $3,800 this year.
A majority of Americans say they are spending more on groceries than they were last year and they blame Trump for the increased costs, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted in late October.
Critics of Trump’s tariffs celebrated the move and called on the president to end his other tariffs as well.
“President Trump is finally admitting what we always knew: his tariffs are raising prices for the American people,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Virginia), a member of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on trade and co-sponsor of the bipartisan No Coffee Tax Act, said in a statement. “The same logic — that Trump’s tariffs are driving up prices on coffee, fruit, and other comestibles — is equally true for the thousands of other goods on which his tariffs remain.”
“We encourage the administration to build on today’s announcement and provide additional tariff relief for other products not readily available from domestic sources and in instances where tariffs threaten American jobs,” said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a statement.
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