Trump Administration Pauses Reciprocal Tariffs for 90 Days
David Salmonsen
Senior Director, Government Affairs
Chad Smith
Associate News Service Editor, NAFB
The tariff whiplash continues as President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs. Chad Smith reports.
Smith: President Trump announced a 90-day pause in the reciprocal tariffs in place on many U.S. trading partners. Dave Salmonsen, senior director of government affairs for the American Farm Bureau Federation, says the situation has changed rapidly over the last seven days.
Salmonsen: The ten percent tariffs went into effect last weekend. Specific country tariffs, the higher ones, were supposed to go into effect on April 9th, and then, the President came on April 9th and said, well, we're going to do a 90-day pause. Right now, we're waiting to see what happens next, but the specific country, the very high tariffs, haven't gone into effect.
Smith: It’s important to note there was one significant exception to the pause: China, which actually saw an increase in tariffs.
Salmonsen: Right now, we've got a 125 percent additional tariff on Chinese goods that would enter the U.S., and they had retaliated, and said, well, we're going to put up to an 84 percent tariff on U.S. goods going into China. We'll see what impacts that has going forward on all U.S. goods exported, but, of course, particularly our agricultural exports.
Smith: Salmonsen says the next three months will be critical for negotiations.
Salmonsen: But now is the time for discussion with a lot of the countries, whether they had the 10 percent additional or the much higher levels, the country-specific, will be engaging in discussions with the administration. See what kind of a deal they can work out in exchange for again reducing their tariffs, looking at some of their non-tariff trade barriers. In agriculture, of course, we're looking to standards.
Smith: Stay tuned to fb.org for the latest updates. Chad Smith, Washington.
