President Trump on Friday ordered carveouts for specific items under his tariff policies in an attempt to stabilize food prices.
The president signed an executive order to exempt specific agricultural products and other food goods from reciprocal tariffs, effective immediately.
The broad list include beef products, beans, nuts, produce like tomatoes and bananas, tea, coffee and spices.
“We just did a little bit of a rollback on some foods like coffee,” President Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
President Trump acknowledged Friday that his tariff policies have translated to increased costs for American consumers.
“I say they may, in some cases," he said.
“But to a large extent they’ve been borne by other countries,” he said.
The White House said the original tariff rates on foods and other goods were in many cases no longer necessary because of new trade agreements with foreign trading partners.
Those framework agreements will apply to countries including Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador and Argentina.
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The White House also announced a new tariff reduction with Switzerland, where it intends to reduce its rate to 15%. In return, Switzerland is expected to lower duties on certain industrial and agricultural products. Swiss companies are expected to invest about $200 billion in the United States.
We expect by the end of President Trump's term for that trade deficit with Switzerland to be eliminated because of these kinds of moves," said Jamieson Greer, U.S. Trade Representative. "Also more importantly, there's going to be structural opening of Switzerland to the United States. Switzerland on the industrial side already has fairly low tariffs, but they've agreed to remove all industrial tariffs. They've agreed to give us market access for things like poultry, which is really challenging for the U.S. and Europe. So it's actually quite an important development that Switzerland is willing to do that. Of course they'll give us access on pork and beef and seafood and a variety of other products that we make. So it's an exciting opportunity."
