Speculation about what President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda could mean for the food industry and specifically meat and poultry processing companies in the United States and their customers outside the country, was the topic of many news headlines and pundits’ talking points for months before the Jan. 20 inauguration and is expected to continue after his second term begins four years after his first term ended.

Published on Dec. 17, 2024, Rabobank’s “Agri Commodity Markets Outlook 2025,” identified some of the top-of-mind issues concerning many stakeholders in the agriculture supply chain, including the prospect of new tariff disputes, ongoing geopolitical conflicts across the globe and a contrasting stance on climate change-related policies that could profoundly impact energy sourcing, export opportunities and overall profitability. On his Truth Social platform Trump commented in late November that on day one of his administration a 25% across-the-board tariff would be levied on goods imported from Mexico and Canada; an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese imports; and a 100% tariff on imports from BRICS (Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Russian Federation, South Africa and United Arab Emirates) nations.

“This move threatens to compress margins for farmers, particularly those producing major grains and oilseeds, which have already seen price declines in 2024,” said Carlos Mera, head of Agri Commodity Markets Research at Rabobank.

The Rabobank report noted that the United States imported $195 billion worth of agricultural products in 2023, a 280% increase over the past two decades. Potential retaliatory measures from China could further exacerbate the situation.

“The threat of massive tariffs on our top trading partners certainly grabbed the attention of farmers everywhere,” said Sam Kieffer, vice president of public policy at the American Farm Bureau Federation. “When tariffs are levied by the United States, foreign governments often target American agricultural exports for retaliation. In fiscal year 2024, Mexico became our No. 1 destination for American agriculture exports for the first time ($30 billion). Canada was No. 2 ($29 billion), and China was the No. 3 destination of exported US ag products ($25.7 billion).”

Through the third quarter of 2024, US exports were $264 billion to Canada, $253 billion to Mexico and $105 billion to China. More broadly, those three countries shipped more than $1 trillion in goods to the United States from January through September of this year, according to the US Commerce Department. Mexico led the way with $379 billion, followed by China at $322 billion and Canada at $309 billion. Mexico and Canada have combined for $688 billion in US imports this year, outpacing the entirety of Europe’s $565 billion.


US citizens line up to vote on ballotSource: ©ALAN - STOCK.ADOBE.COM


Voting for change

During a webinar hosted by the Meat Institute this past month, political strategists provided insights about how the new administration’s actions might affect the industry right out of the gate and for the ensuing four years. “Meat Institute Post-Election Insights and Implications” featured presentations by two seasoned consultants with extensive political backgrounds who addressed how the election outcome reflected voters’ overwhelming desire for change and how voting against the status quo could mean making some sobering compromises. Presentations during the webinar helped explain the meaning behind the Republican party’s victory and what the result might mean for the meat and poultry processing sector in the near future and for the next four years.

One of the presenters was Tucker Eskew, a co-founding partner at Austin, Texas-based Vianovo, a bipartisan public advisory firm specializing in managing high-stakes brand, political and crisis issues.

He has worked in leadership roles in both Bush-Cheney campaigns and in 2008 was counselor to Sarah Palin, the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee. He specializes in issues management, crisis communications and strategic positioning for clients focused on various sectors, including manufacturing, defense, education and technology. At the White House, Eskew served as Deputy Assistant to President Bush from 2001-2003, heading media affairs as well as global communications.

Early in his political career, Eskew worked as an intern with then Secretary of Agriculture John Block’s office. Looking back at the reelection campaign of the Reagan administration and every election cycle when there is a changing of the guard at the executive branch, voters and legislators are left to discern, ‘was there a mandate issued by a particular election.’

Eskew posed the question based on the most recent election: “Will the Trump-Vance administration claim the will of the public and use that to get things accomplished and, most importantly, what those things will be?”

Eskew focused on what the meaning of the election was; what was the mandate from the voters’ perspective and how that aligned with the newly elected administration. He pointed out that the 2024 election took place during a time of economic volatility with unrelenting inflation and a backdrop of unprecedented political division and severely fragmented partisanship.

“Voters have decisively rejected the status quo,” Eskew said. “They wanted change.”

In a campaign season that saw accusations and claims of fascism, communism, socialism and worse, and despite polling numbers that indicated widespread concern about the ability of the person they elected to potentially lead the country in an authoritarian manner, voters cast their ballots for him anyway. Eskew described the outcome as the definition of a change election.

“And so, at a minimum, I would say there was a negative mandate,” he said.

He made the point that based on exit poll results, a majority of voters in swing states, especially those occupied by working class voters and many of whom were without college degrees, felt that the economy was suffering.For many at the polls, including Latinos, younger women, single women, and unmarried voters, their loyalty shifted, knowing that change would mean accepting the bad with the good.

“The frustrations they felt outweighed any of their concerns about Trump rhetoric or past behavior,” Eskew said.

Immigration at issue

With Trump at the helm, Eskew expects immigration to be one of his first priorities, consistent with his campaign platform that proclaimed failure by the Biden administration.

“The immigration problem in this country got heightened and sharpened in the last four years,” he said. “It’s been a growing problem.”

Legislators on both sides of the aisle have struggled to create a path to citizenship while cracking down on the worst of illegal immigration, which in some cases has resulted in perpetrators of crime and drug trafficking to flourish.

“I think it’s that worst of illegal immigration that the Trump administration will consider low hanging fruit,” Eskew said, adding that there likely will be an initial emphasis put on high-profile arrests and even deportations.

“I think you can look for action, and sometimes dramatic action,” Eskew said.

Nathan Fretz, vice president of legislative affairs with the Meat Institute, who served as moderator for the webinar, also chimed in on the possible fate of the segment of workers many meat and poultry processing companies rely on for their daily operations specific to temporary protected status programs for immigrant workers and other visa programs.

“I see those being certainly squeezed, if not eliminated,” he said. “That is certainly going to have an impact on the food and ag sectors.”

Hill perspectives

Also presenting during the webinar, T.A. Hawks, who leads Washington, DC-based Monument Advocacy’s Food, Ag, and Conservation Practice Area, discussed how Congress will influence the tone of legislation during the Trump presidency.

Hawks pointed out that now that the Republicans are in control of Congress and are led by a Republican president, the legislative focus will likely fall under the broad banner of reconciliation bills. He said the priority for the incoming administration and legislators on Capitol Hill will be to make big moves on taxes, border security, energy and tariffs.

He said solving the border security puzzle is difficult.

“If you talk to any fruit and vegetable grower…and frankly anybody in most protein sectors, they all understand there are not enough Americans who want the jobs that need to be filled to ensure grocery store shelves are stocked with the products US consumers have come to expect,” he said.

Finding a pathway to legal immigration policies that satisfy everyone without undertaking a comprehensive immigration reform bill as part of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act has proven too daunting for Congress for many years. Hawks said on Capitol Hill there will always be a push to find opportunities to implement proactive programs to create that pathway, but there are distinctions to be agreed on regarding what dictates legal versus illegal immigration, which has been a long-standing sticking point.

Tariff Talk

The Meat Institute’s Fretz also pointed out that there is a track record for the backlash of tariffs dating back to the first Trump presidency and that should inform expectations in the coming months. As an industry highly dependent on exports, meat and poultry processors have reasons to believe tariffs imposed by the United States will result in retaliation from trading partners, as they did in Trump’s first term.

“Some of the things that we saw are that beef and pork were a frontline for retaliation,” he said.

“It’s going to depend on which country tariffs are imposed upon, but that is what we’ve seen in the past, and [we] would expect the same.

“I think the newer wrinkle is that more countries are also using non-tariff trade barriers and those could easily be implemented,” Fretz added, which could include quotas and embargoes and would have the same effect of reducing American protein exports to some countries.

On the topic of tariffs, Eskew said Trump’s plans for imposing penalties on goods crossing the border should be looked on as a bargaining tool. A self-proclaimed, proud dealmaker, the second-time president has a tendency to initially issue very staunch threats, especially when it comes to trade, as an opening salvo in the negotiation process.

“We may not like some of those results, we might agree with them, but they will be, I think, a means to an end,” Eskew said, adding that Trump’s stance on tariff’s differs from the perspective of many economists, in that it is the foreign trading partner paying for the tariffs.

“I side with those who view it as a tax on consumers in this country, but he does not see it that way,” he said.