AFBF: The Next Three Months Critical For Trade

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, said the situation has changed rapidly over the last week-plus.

“The 10% 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'," Salmonsen said.  "Right now, we're waiting to see what happens next, but the specific country, the very high tariffs, haven't gone into effect.”

Salmonsen noted there was one significant exception to the pause: China, which actually saw an increase in tariffs.  He added the next three months will be critical for negotiations.

"But now is the time for discussion with a lot of the countries, whether they had the 10% additional or the much higher levels, the country specific, will be engaging in discussions with the administration," he said.  "See what kind of a deal they can work out in exchange for perhaps again reducing their tariffs they may have on some of our products by looking at some of their non-tariff trade barriers. In agriculture, of course, we're looking to standards."

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