On Wednesday, President Donald Trump temporarily backed away from most of the tariff hikes he announced last week. While trading partners will still face a 10% tariff raise, he doubled down on China with a 125% increase. It’s unclear yet how that will affect Idaho’s agriculture, one of the state’s largest exporting industries.
According to the USDA, America exports about $24 billion worth farm goods to China, making it the U.S.’ third largest agricultural partner. Over half of those exports are soybeans.
“We don’t grow soybeans in the state of Idaho, which in this scenario is very good for Idaho farmers and ranchers,” said University of Idaho Economist Brett Wilder.
Idaho exports about $4 billion of goods each year, a third coming from the agricultural industry. It also imports $6 billion worth of all commodities from abroad.
“About 29% of our exports is dairy products. That’s generally dried dairy products, cheeses, etc,” Wilder said. “16% of our exports are potatoes or potato value added products. Eight percent is live cattle, going into either Canada or Mexico. About 6% of our exports are actually seeds for planting. We do quite a bit of pulse crops like dry beans, lentils, chickpeas.”
According to the Idaho Department of Commerce, Idaho’s trade with China has been declining for the last few years, following a national trend. In 2023, the state exported about $180 million of goods to the country, with 55% coming from the food and agriculture industry.
Farmers are used to volatility and uncertainty, Wilder said, but the pace at which tariffs have been changing make it difficult for producers to make decisions.
“We’re in this window where people are deciding what crops they’re going to plant,” he said.
Future crop yields and animal productions are planned months and years in advance.
“People have to make that decision right now and live with that decision through the rest of the year, even if something changes next week.”
Wilder says it’s hard to know what the impact of tariff hikes will have.
“What the actual result is going to be, what the impact is to producers, what the impact is to cost of production, what the impact is at the consumer level. We’re not going to know that for months,” he said.
Since tariffs will hit each product and industry differently, it’s also unclear how retaliatory tariffs will play out, he added.
“Other than it’s fairly easy to say that consumers will see higher prices. That’s really the only thing that we can say with confidence,” Wilder said.
On Wednesday, China announced 84% raises on tariffs to the U.S.