Overview
- President Trump signed an executive order exempting many food imports, including beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, from his reciprocal tariffs, with the changes backdated to early Thursday and refunds to be handled under U.S. Customs and Border Protection procedures.
- The exemptions remove eligible items from reciprocal rates that ranged from 10% to as high as 50%, though other duties still apply in some cases, such as a 17% tariff on tomatoes from Mexico.
- The White House also announced preliminary trade frameworks with Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador and Ecuador that allow product-specific relief while keeping baseline reciprocal rates in place at 10% for Argentina, Guatemala and El Salvador and 15% for Ecuador.
- Key limits remain, including no relief for Brazil’s 50% tariffs on major food exports to the U.S., and officials said they expect some price relief but offered no quantifiable estimates.
- The policy shift follows voter concern over grocery costs and will be implemented administratively in the coming weeks as the Latin American frameworks are finalized.