TRADE UPDATE

Food & Agriculture
March 25, 2025

By Kristy Goodfellow, Vice President of Trade and Industry Affairs, Sophia Vaccaro, CRA Trade Intern, and Charlotte McCourt, CRA Communications Intern

HIGHLIGHTS

• Tariffs:
  • The EU has delayed its first wave of Section 232 steel and aluminum retaliatory tariffs until mid-April to allow for more time to negotiate a potential deal and better calibrate its response.
  • Many food and agricultural products are included on a list of tariffs Canada has proposed for its second tranche of retaliation in response to U.S. 25% tariffs on all products (10% on certain energy products).
  • Several news outlets are reporting the Trump Administration’s attempt to scale back expectations for the scope of reciprocal tariffs that will be announced on April 2, a day President Donald Trump has been referring to as “Liberation Day.”
• Transportation: Many U.S. agriculture organizations are registering concerns about proposed actions in response to the Section 301 Investigation of China’s Targeting of the Maritime, Logistics, and Shipbuilding Sector for Dominance. A public comment period closed on March 24 and public hearings are taking place this week.
• International Organizations: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released its latest Interim Economic Outlook, which highlights how trade policy uncertainty and tensions have tipped the world to slower growth and faster inflation.
• US-UK: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with two UK officials on March 18 to discuss a potential bilateral trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom.
• BREXIT: A new study from USDA’s Economic Research Service finds the post-Brexit environment has resulted in a drop in agriculture and food trade between the UK and the EU.
• Congress: Members of the bipartisan House Agriculture Trade Caucus are pushing the Trump Administration to adopt “an aggressive agenda” for agricultural trade.

“The word flexibility is an important word. Sometimes there is flexibility. There will be flexibility. But basically, it’s reciprocal. So that if China is charging us 50%, or 30%, or 20% -and I don’t meet China, I mean anybody, any country. Canada. Nobody knows that Canada is charging our dairy farmers, they have 270% tariffs. Nobody knows that…

And remember with Canada, we don’t need their cars. We don’t need their lumber.  We don’t need their energy. We don’t need anything from Canada. And yet it cost us $200 billion a year in subsidies to keep Canada afloat. So, when I say they should be a state, I mean that. ”

-President Donald Trump in comments from the Oval Office on March 21, 2025

Tariffs

EU RETALIATORY TARIFFS DELAYED

• The EU has delayed its first wave of Section 232 steel and aluminum retaliatory tariffs until mid-April. The decision comes as the EU is anticipating new U.S. duties to come into effect on April 2.  
• The first wave was announced on March 12 and included tariffs on whiskey, motorcycles, jeans, and peanut butter. The second wave of potential retaliatory tariffs targets many agricultural products and is also slated to come into force in mid-April.
• EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič stated that “on April 2, we will need to assess the action take[n] by the U.S. and keep a flexible approach so as to calibrate our response accordingly.”

CANADA’S RETALIATORY TARIFFS

• Numerous food and agricultural products are included on a list of tariffs Canada has proposed for its second round of retaliation in response to U.S. 25% tariffs on all products (10% on certain energy products).
• A comment period on these tariffs ends on April 2.
• At the WTO Committee on Agriculture meetings this week, Canada will raise their issue with the proposed U.S. tariffs. Through a public question-and-answer mechanism, Canada has asked: “Has the U.S. considered the severe negative impacts of these unjust tariffs on the rules-based multilateral trading system?”

“LIBERATION DAY”

• Several news outlets are reporting the Trump Administration’s attempt to scale back expectations for the scope of tariffs that will be announced on April 2.
• President Donald Trump has otherwise drawn attention to the pending reciprocal tariff announcements, calling April 2 “Liberation Day.”

Transportation

SECTION 301 PROCESS MOVES FORWARD

• The comment period closed on March 24 for proposed actions in response to the Section 301 Investigation of China’s Targeting of the Maritime, Logistics, and Shipbuilding Sector for Dominance.
• The U.S. International Trade Commission has scheduled public hearings on the Section 301 proposed action for March 24 and 26.
• Food and agriculture organizations scheduled to testify include the American Soybean Association, Agriculture Transportation Coalition, and North American Export Grain Association.
• Many agricultural traders have already registered concerns with this proposal publicly. 
  • In a recent summary of the proposal published by the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, the AgTC reiterates its mantra — “Nothing we produce in agriculture or forest products here in the U.S. cannot be sourced from a foreign country; if we cannot deliver to our overseas customer affordably and dependably, they will find alternative sources, and U.S. ag loses that market.”

International Organizations

OECD RELEASES LATEST ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

• The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) updated its inflation forecasts, among other key indicators, in its latest Interim Economic Outlook, with trends of slower growth, lingering inflation, and an uncertain policy environment.
• Headline inflation in G20 economies is projected at 3.8% in 2025 and 3.2% in 2026, both up 0.3% from the last report.
• The outlook projects global growth slowing to 3.1% in 2025 and 3% in 2026, both down 0.2% from the last report.
• The report also highlights that further trade fragmentation would harm global growth prospects, as the high level of geopolitical and policy uncertainty brings substantial risks to the baseline projections.

US-UK

LUTNICK AND GREER MEET WITH UK TRADE OFFICIALS

• U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer recently met with Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds and the Prime Minister’s Special Adviser on Business and Investment Varun Chandra.
• During the March 18 meeting, they discussed a potential bilateral trade agreement following last month’s meeting between the President and the UK Prime Minister.
• According to a Commerce Department readout of the meeting, Lutnick laid out his desire and the Trump Administration’s view that any future agreement will lower barriers for American companies, while also creating jobs and supporting the growth of critical sectors in both the US and the UK.
• The efforts to develop this deal will continue over the coming days and weeks.   

BREXIT

USDA ERS RELEASES STUDY ON EU-UK AGRI-FOOD TRADE

• USDA’s Economic Research Service released an analysis looking at the change in EU-UK agri-food trade since Brexit in January 2020 and the EU-UK Trade Cooperation Agreement (TCA) that went into force in January 2021.
• The authors observed that post-Brexit trends in agri-food trade indicate that the EU and UK diverged from one another, increasing their trade flows with the rest of the world.
• They also found that relative to the rest of the world, EU-UK total agri-food and related trade was estimated to have declined by 25.7 percent for the UK and 21.3 percent for the EU.
• The authors state that the common driver of these relative trends is European demand for biofuels to meet Europe’s regulatory targets for renewable energy production.

Congress

HOUSE AG TRADE CAUCUS AND UPCOMING W&M HEARING

• Members of the bipartisan House Agriculture Trade Caucus have pushed for the Trump Administration to adopt “an aggressive agenda” on agricultural trade, citing that American farmers have faced “unjustified” barriers to exports
• Caucus co-chair Dusty Johnson (R-SD), co-chair of the caucus, recently introduced H.Res. 230, Expressing the sense that Congress and the administration must work together, with urgency, to pursue effective food and agricultural trade policies.
• This resolution would declare that U.S. agricultural exports are “subject to unjustified, nonscience-based trade barriers” and would urge the Trump Administration to address these barriers and help to open markets and honor existing trade agreements.
• On March 20, members of Congress representing rural districts penned a letter to President Trump urging the removal of unfair agricultural trade barriers.
• On March 25, the U.S. House Ways and Meetings Committee is holding a Trade Subcommittee hearing on “American Trade Negotiation Priorities,” which will include testimony from Robby Kirkland, chairman of Texas Cattle Feeders Association.