It has been a busy week with big shakeups in trade policy, and a lot has taken place over the last 24 hours.
As of right now, President Trump has hit pause, taking all country-specific tariffs down to 10 percent for 90 days, but that does not include China. He raised their tariff rate to 125 percent.
Other nations are already responding to the recent adjustments. Within the last few hours, the European Union announced a pause of their own. It came after the EU voted for new tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum, which are now on the back burner.
Ag lawmakers say the tariff pause is a win for America, with Louisiana Senator John Kennedy saying he is confident the U.S. and China will soon reach a deal.
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President Donald Trump says a deal is nearly done on lowering beef prices, but he has not released details.
Large carryover stocks continue to put pressure on commodity prices, creating uncertainty for growers looking to market their grain.
Peel says Mexico has a much greater capability to expand its beef industry than it did 20 or 30 years ago in terms of its feeding and packing infrastructure.
The impacts of the government shutdown have reached commodity growers with crops to move, ag economists monitoring the harvest without key data reporting, and meat producers in need of new export markets.
In a statement provided to RFD-TV News, a USDA spokesperson reiterated President Trump and the USDA’s commitment to farmers in difficult economic times.
China is not one of our top suppliers of cooking oil, according to USDA ERS data, but does export a lot of used cooking oil to the U.S. for biofuel production.