Trump Adds Canada and Mexico to Tariff List.

The President finally pulled the trigger on his threatened tariffs targeting U.S. neighbors, citing farmers as potential beneficiaries of his economic shakeup. Trump also increased Chinese tariffs.

President Donald Trump announced that his tariffs targeting Mexico and Canada would be put into place today (March 4, 2025), applying a 25% fee on imports from the two countries. Canadian energy imports will have a smaller 10% tariff applied. Trump also increased Chinese import tariffs from 10% to 20%.

Trump cited U.S. farmers on social media, posting: "To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!"

Canada and Mexico are already applying reciprocal tariffs on U.S. exports to their countries. China has already announced increases to tariffs on U.S. food and agricultural products.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS), the U.S. has expanded both imports and exports of farm and food products in the last 25 years. ERS explains that while “U.S. agricultural exports have grown steadily over the past 25 years—reaching $174 billion in 2023, up from $57.3 billion in 1998.” During the same period, “total agricultural imports more than quintupled in value, reaching $195 billion.”

The U.S. imports billions of dollars more in farm and food products than it exports. Canada and Mexico make up a large percentage of this negative agricultural trade deficit.

ERS reports that the U.S. “is Canada's largest agricultural trading partner, buying 60.3 percent of Canadian exports and supplying 56.8 percent of Canadian imports…. In 2023, Canada accounted for 16.3 percent of U.S. agricultural exports and 20.6 percent of imports.”

The U.S. is also Mexico’s largest agricultural trading partner, according to ERS, “buying approximately 92 percent of Mexican exports and supplying roughly 74 percent of the country’s imports in this category….In 2023, Mexico accounted for 16.3 percent of U.S. agricultural exports and 23.3 percent of U.S. agricultural imports.”

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NOTE—This is likely the first of many future issues of The Cocklebur that will focus on trade, exports, imports, tariffs, and more. The purpose of today’s newsletter is informational in nature and focuses solely on agriculture. The trade wars will have large impacts on rural America in a variety of ways both including and above-and-beyond farm and food. The economic impacts are going to be far and wide, in some ways positive and in some ways negative. There will be winners and losers. Jobs are likely to be lost. Jobs are likely to be gained. There will also be lots of political finger-wagging, blaming, and dishonest debate. There will be many multinational corporations that try to take advantages of these changes (through price gouging, for example) to cash in on the chaos.

We will try to help you understand these complex issues as they relate to rural America. And, we will also at times challenge the idea that a headlong rush to becoming “the party of free trade” might not be the political gold that some corporate Democrats seem to think it is (SEE: NAFTA, which both wrecked the manufacturing economy in many parts of rural America and also destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Mexican peasant farmers and their villages.)

—Bryce, Publisher of The Cocklebur

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With that in mind, if you have the time and interest in reading more on these issues, I would recommend:

• Trade Basics: Tariffs 101. A great piece by the great Karen Hansen-Kuhn at the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy.

• Shutdown Could Put Aid Payments at Risk—Commodity Producers Brace for Impact: Trade Tariffs and Shutdown Risks Loom. A more agriculture-industry focused story from DTN Ag Policy Editor Chris Clayton.

• President Trump’s tariffs bring return of uncertainty for America’s farmers. Another agriculture-focused article from Mónica Cordero at Investigate Midwest/Report for America.

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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.