Pork Industry Expresses Concerns Over New Round Of Trade Tariffs

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.”

The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) also weighed in, saying that maintaining and expanding export markets is crucial to the success of the U.S. pork industry, which in 2024 exported more than $8.6 billion worth of pork to more than 100 countries.

“Mexico and Canada, as well as Asian and Western Hemisphere nations, are key trading partners for U.S. pork producers with long-standing relationships fostered by trade agreements,” NPPC said in a prepared statement.

A partial list of the countries Trump highlighted 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%

Trade Partners’ Ag Media Respond To Tariffs

Reaction from some of the U.S. trade partners was swift following Trump’s announcement, though mostly calibrated in agricultural circles. Here are two examples of what was reported in the United Kingdom and Canada yesterday, specific to pork:

“The UK got away relatively lightly in last night’s theatrical announcement – facing the lowest 10% ‘baseline’ rate imposed on all imports to the US. The UK pork sector will be directly affected by Donald Trump’s tariffs – but the bigger impact maybe the knock-on effect of US’s wider global tariff regime on pork trade flows, or even the UK’s efforts to avoid them.” reported Alistair Driver, editor of Pig World, the “voice of the British pig industry.”

“Retaliatory tariffs on U.S. pork could hit Canadian hog prices harder than U.S. tariffs themselves,” wrote Jim Eadie, publisher of Canada’s Swineweb.com. “Mexico, the largest importer of U.S. pork, holds significant leverage. Any retaliatory measures from Mexico — as a response to U.S. trade actions — could drastically reduce U.S. pork exports. This would create oversupply in the U.S. market, pushing U.S. pork prices down, and consequently dragging Canadian prices down with them.”

U.S. Grain Growers Brace For Financial Pain

Glen Newcomer wants to be positive in the face of President Trump’s move to introduce a new round of tariffs on U.S. trading partners. But the northwest Ohio corn and soybean farmer said he’s concerned the tariffs could create more losers than winners in the agricultural industry, a sentiment shared in a recent AgWeb poll that found more than half of farmers don’t support Trump’s use of tariffs.

On the winning side of things, Newcomer thinks this moment might be a short-term opportunity for farmers in the market for equipment to go ahead and make their purchases.

“There are a lot of dealerships with inventory on their lots right now that was shipped and is sitting there, so that equipment is going to have a lower sticker price than equipment that’s going to be tariffed or have components that are tariffed,” said
Newcomer, who farms near Bryan, Ohio. His advice to other farmers and livestock producers: “Get a look at the inventory and see if there’s anything there you need because the new equipment will continue to cost more.”

While that’s a possible silver lining, it’s about the only positive Newcomer can muster up.

“The expectation that farmers will get compensated, as they did in the past, for this trade difference – with all of the emphasis on reducing spending – I don’t know if that’s going to materialize,” Newcomer said.

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.

“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 Chase Dewitz, who raises beef cattle and grain in central North Dakota, near Steele.

“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.”

Ag Barometer Shares Farmer Sentiments

Other 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 negative about the outlook for the future of ag export markets. 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.

How much economic pain farmers can absorb from the Trump administration’s decisions that impact agriculture depends on the individual’s financial position, Newcomer pointed out.

“If you are in a strong financial position, and you have strong working capital, you’ve got a lot of dry powder,” he said. “I think you’re just going to say, ‘I’m willing to absorb some of this for long-term gain.’

“But if a person has to meet a budget, or they have strong commitments or obligations that they have to meet… and if taxes go up locally, for property and land, and with the inflation of everything else, and your budget is stretched, there’s going to be a huge concern out here for profitability,” Newcomer added.

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 added. “Well, it’s going to affect everybody.”

Listen to the full conversation with U.S. farmers on “AgriTalk” here: Farmer Forum - AgriTalk

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