Australian exporters rejoice as Donald Trump backflips on agricultural tariffs

Australian producers have been gifted a welcome shot in the arm after US President Donald Trump announced the US will be lowering tariffs on agricultural imports including beef.

Beef is Australia’s largest export to the United States and cattle farmers will be big beneficiaries of the reversal as the president faces pressure around cost of living from voters.

The order winding back tariff prices on beef, bananas, coffee and tomatoes was signed on Friday (local time), exempting the produce from reciprocal tariffs imposed by the president and is backdated to take effect on November 13.

“Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order modifying the scope of the reciprocal tariffs that he first announced on April 2, 2025. Specifically, certain qualifying agricultural products will no longer be subject to those tariffs,” the White House statement said.

Mr Trump created a storm earlier this year by imposing tariffs on all countries importing goods to the US varying in price but starting at 10 per cent.

Soaring beef prices have been a particular concern, and Mr Trump said he is taking action to lower them.

“That’s something that we’re going to fix, and we’re going to fix it right away,” Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said this week.

Australia exported 394,716 tonnes of beef to the US in 2024, valued at $4.16 billion, according to Meat and Livestock Australia.

The executive order acknowledged that domestic demand for such products outstripped domestic capacity to produce them.

The tariff exemptions also cover many other produce types including pineapples and avocados.

Despite the tariff, Meat and Livestock Australia says Australian beef exports to the US have jumped by 17 per cent so far this year with 370,357 tonnes of beef headed to the US in 2025.

The surge is being driven by a major drop in US beef production and significantly higher tariffs on rival suppliers such as Brazil.

A range of other tariffs still in place will continue to apply.

The move marks a reversal for Trump, who has insisted tariffs are necessary to protect US businesses and workers. He has contended consumers will not ultimately pay for the higher duties.

“Australia bans – and they’re wonderful people, and wonderful everything – but they ban American beef,” President Trump said in an April 2 speech.

“Yet we imported $US3bn of Australian beef from them just last year alone.

“They won’t take any of our beef. They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers. And you know, I don’t blame them, but we’re doing the same thing right now starting at midnight tonight.”

Trade Minister Don Farrell on Saturday welcomed Mr Trump’s decision.

“Tariffs are an act of economic self-harm and ultimately hurt American consumers,” he said.

“We maintain our position that tariffs on Australian products are unjustified, and [we] continue to advocate for their removal.”

Cattle Australia chief executive Will Evans has celebrated the news and says Australian farmers will step in to assist the US with their big beef shortfall.

“We welcome the news by the US to lower tariffs and any move in that market will have a positive effect here,” Mr Evans told Sky News on Saturday.

“The US cattle herd is at a 70-year low and we are steppig in to assist and help with supply in that market.

“The Mexican/US border is closed which has significant ramifications with over a million cattle a year now not flowing due to disease across the border.”

Pastoralists & Graziers Association of WA president Tony Seabrook said his State was primed to step in.

“Any extra demand in the world, always raises those prices, and we are in the box seat when it comes down to supplying beef to America because we have open channels there,” he said.

“We’re exporting a lot of beef over there at the moment, there’s no new protocols required.”

Mr Seabrook said while he was sure the Eastern Seaboard would see a lot of action, he said WA’s north could benefit in particular.

“In WA the herd is half and half, half in agricultural (region) here and half up in the Kimberley, and the Kimberly is grass fed,” he said.

“They don’t do a lot of feed lotting up there and so they grow on the range lands and that ought to have huge appeal to all of those that prefer to buy their stuff off the range lands, clean and green.”

Mr Seabrook said he believed the decision was made due to domestic issues in America’s industry.

“The American herd is at historically low levels, and the shortage of beef over there is seeing the price of beef rise to the consumers in America,” he said.

“The tariff on the imported beef wasn’t such a bright idea because at the end of the day the American consumer is the one that will pay that tariff.

“So common sense is obviously prevailing, because it was an ongoing goal for America, doing what they did because it hurt nobody except themselves.”

The exemptions come just a day after Trump reached trade framework agreements with four Latin American countries – including 10 per cent tariffs on most goods from Argentina, Guatemala, and El Salvador, and 15 per cent from Ecuador. It also removes duties specifically on products not grown or produced in the US in sufficient quantities.

The tariff exemptions aim to help moderate these grocery price increases, although experts caution that other factors such as global supply shortages also influence prices.