In 2025, the United States imported $212 billion in agricultural products and exported $171 billion, leaving a $41 billion trade deficit, according to USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS). That baseline helps show where tariff exposure could matter—but trade values alone do not reveal farmers’ profits, food dependence, consumer prices, or the effect of any one tariff. Duties vary by product classification, country, and effective date.
What does the U.S. agricultural trade balance show?
A trade balance compares the value of exports with the value of imports over a stated period. USDA ERS reported that imports exceeded exports by $41 billion in calendar year 2025: imports were $212 billion and exports were $171 billion. The balance had been positive for nearly 60 years before turning to a deficit by 2019. These are dollar values, not a direct measure of how much food the country physically depends on imports for, how profitable farms are, or whether consumers are better or worse off.
The mix of trade matters too. In 2025, high-value products accounted for $121 billion, or 71 percent, of U.S. agricultural export value; they made up 98 percent of agricultural import value. ERS identifies grains and feeds, soybeans, livestock products, tree nuts, fruits, vegetables, and consumer-oriented food among leading export categories. Processed foods and beverages and tropical products are among leading import groups. USDA ERS’s U.S. agricultural trade overview provides the dated totals and category context.
Which countries buy the most U.S. agricultural products?
In calendar year 2025, the leading export markets were Mexico, Canada, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea. Together they accounted for 56 percent of the $171 billion in U.S. agricultural exports. Mexico was the largest market and Canada the second largest. Exports to the EU reached a record $14.5 billion that year.
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China fell to sixth place. U.S. agricultural exports there were $8.4 billion in 2025, down 66 percent from 2024. ERS associated the drop with reciprocal tariffs and lower demand for U.S. soybeans; that attribution does not establish that tariffs alone caused the decline. This concentration means shifts in a few major markets can be important for exporters, while the rank changes also show why no single-country explanation captures the whole trade picture. See USDA ERS’s 2025 market statistics and charts.
How do tariffs affect U.S. farmers?
A tariff is a customs duty on imported goods. For U.S. agriculture, it is important to distinguish a duty the United States places on imports from a retaliatory duty another country places on U.S. exports. The first can change the cost of imported inputs or competing goods; the second can make U.S. products more expensive in an export market. Neither effect is uniform across all farms or products.
Trade also responds to exchange rates, prices, supply, demand, income, economic growth, population, government support, and trade policy. USDA ERS puts the broader context succinctly: “Global economic conditions drive demand for food and agricultural products, providing the foundation for U.S. agricultural trade.” A change in export value is an observed outcome; estimating how much of it a tariff caused requires separating the tariff from those other influences.
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What the 2018–2019 retaliation episode shows
A 2022 USDA ERS study estimated that retaliatory tariffs imposed by Canada, China, the European Union, India, Mexico, and Turkey after U.S. tariff actions in 2018 were associated with more than $27 billion in U.S. agricultural export reductions from mid-2018 through the end of 2019. The study also expressed the losses as $13.2 billion annualized. These are retrospective estimates for that episode, not a forecast of the impact of tariffs in force today.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThe estimated losses were concentrated in particular products: soybeans accounted for nearly 71 percent, or $9.4 billion annualized; sorghum losses were estimated at $854 million, and pork at $646 million. Iowa, Illinois, and Kansas had particularly large estimated state-level annualized losses. The episode illustrates how retaliation can affect specific commodities and places disproportionately, rather than producing an even effect across agriculture. Details and methodology are in USDA ERS’s analysis of retaliatory tariffs.
How could tariffs affect food prices and farm exports?
Export duties imposed by a trading partner can reduce the competitiveness of affected U.S. products in that market, while U.S. tariffs on imports can affect the cost of goods entering the country. The actual consequences depend on which products and countries are covered, how buyers and sellers respond, and wider market conditions. The historical ERS estimates show that export losses during one retaliation episode were concentrated in certain commodities; they do not establish a current effect on farm income or grocery prices.
For a useful comparison, keep the product grouping, destination or origin country, value and volume, reporting period, and tariff measure and effective date consistent. Value can change because prices or exchange rates change even when physical quantities do not. USDA’s trade datasets allow comparisons by country, commodity, and time period, but the statistics themselves do not prove the tariff owed on a particular shipment.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Are agricultural products exempt from tariffs?
Some qualifying agricultural imports were removed from U.S. reciprocal tariffs effective November 13, 2025. The White House listed examples including coffee and tea; tropical fruits and fruit juices; cocoa and spices; bananas, oranges, and tomatoes; beef; and additional fertilizers. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) implementation notice describes the exemption by reference to 237 Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) classifications and eleven additional categories. A broad product label does not establish that every item in that category qualifies.
That November 2025 action is not a complete tariff schedule for October 2026. Treatment depends on the exact classification, country of origin, entry date, and applicable tariff order or trade arrangement. To check an actual shipment, identify its HTSUS classification and consult current CBP guidance and the relevant official action; do not infer the duty from a trade statistic or a general commodity description. The CBP reciprocal-tariff guidance explains the 2025 implementation, while the White House presidential actions index lists actions but is not itself a consolidated product-level tariff schedule.
Where can you verify agricultural trade data?
USDA ERS’s Foreign Agricultural Trade of the United States (FATUS) organizes thousands of HTS codes into hierarchical agricultural groups. Its tables provide trade by commodity and country, with monthly, calendar-year, and fiscal-year views. Check the period and grouping before comparing figures; calendar-year and fiscal-year totals are not interchangeable.
The ERS agricultural trade data page links to state export and state-by-country trade data, U.S. food imports, and agricultural exchange-rate data. Use trade data to establish what was imported or exported, and current customs sources and the relevant legal action to establish the duty for a particular product and date.
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