After Signing Big Budget Boondoggle, White House Pivots Back to Trade War(s).
Trade policy plays an outsized role in U.S. farm and food politics. It should. The U.S. is the world's largest agriculture exporter. But we also import more agriculture products than we export.
President Donald Trump and his White House brain trust returned to the trade and tariff battlefield this week (July 7, 2025) after spending the last few days exaggerating the “benefits” and downplaying the deep cuts to health care, food assistance, and clean energy funding through the Republican One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Trump sent letters to 14 countries so far threatening updated tariff rates of between 25-40% on imported goods if they refuse to negotiate bilateral “trade deals” with the U.S. by an August 1, 2025, deadline.
Japan and South Korea are on the list, each facing 25% tariff rates. The countries were the 4th and 5th largest foreign destinations for U.S. agriculture exports in 2024, purchasing $12.4 billion and $8.8 billion from U.S. food exporters. Japan and South Korea are the top two foreign markets for U.S. beef exporters, and they also purchase billions per year in U.S.-produced corn, wheat, and soybeans. Japan and South Korea have a large trade surplus with the U.S. because they export large volumes of high-value automobiles, auto parts, electronics, and electronic components to the U.S.
Trump is expected to make additional tariff threats soon. Since announcing the large increase to tariffs in April, the White House has failed to deliver on promised trade deals with other countries. Thusfar, only the U.K., Vietnam, and China have agreed to non-binding trade frameworks. Details on these negotiations, nor progress in trade talks, have been made public so far. That’s a far cry from Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro’s promised “90 deals in 90 days.”
Much like the trillions-of-dollars-on-the-line budget reconciliation disaster, it’s hard to imagine Trump, his trade team, or Congressional leaders coming from a place of honest, good faith trade negotiations.
With respect to agriculture, a fact-based trade debate would focus on the reality of U.S. food exports AND IMPORTS. U.S. agriculture imports exceeded exports by more than $30 billion in 2024.
A large majority of U.S. agriculture imports come from Mexico and Canada, primarily fruits, vegetables, live animals, grain, and alcoholic beverages. The U.S. also imports billions of dollars of fish and seafood, processed food products, wine and spirits, coffee, chocolate, vegetables oils (such as canola and olive oil) from a variety of countries.
Trade negotiations could be all about growing the domestic economy by replacing imports, but the Trump approach has so far been little more than a performative mess of tariff threats and pie-in-the-sky revenue projections. It’s certainly possible to increase U.S. fruit and vegetable production, for instance, to replace imports with domestic production. But that would require investment in U.S. veggie and fruit growers, food processing and distribution infrastructure, science and research, and enough agricultural workers to get the job done.
You won’t find any of that on the Trump to-do list. Instead, he’ll keep bragging about how much he loves farmers—how much they “feed the world”—even as the U.S. agriculture trade deficit grows. He’ll keep talking about exempting farmworkers from immigration raids and arrests even as more of these essential workers are disappeared.
The Cocklebur covers rural policy and politics from a progressive point-of-view. Our work focuses on a tangled rural political reality of dishonest debate, economic and racial disparities, corporate power over our democracy, and disinformation peddled by conservative media outlets. We aim to use facts, data, and science to inform our point-of-view. We wear our complicated love/WTF relationship with rural America on our sleeve.