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US President Donald Trump has announced that a range of food and beverage products will no longer be subject to the sweeping tariffs he announced earlier this year.

First announced earlier this year, the tariffs saw a baseline 10% levy imposed on goods imported into the US from all other countries, with some subject to an additional tax. According to Trump, this intended to address the US’ trade deficits and the ‘absence of reciprocity’ within its relationships with trading partners.

However, in a move the President claims will ‘strengthen the US economy and national security,’ the White House announced on 14 November that the scope of the tariffs would be modified.

An Executive Order was signed to exempt certain agricultural products from the tariffs, including a range of food items not grown in the US.

The statement from the White House said that limited current domestic capacity to produce these products in the US has determined it ‘necessary and appropriate’ to modify the tariffs. The modifications took effect retroactively from 13 November 2025.

Now exempt products include coffee and tea, tropical fruits and fruit juices, cocoa, spices including vanilla beans, various nuts and grains, and beef products.

Commenting on the exemption of cocoa from the broad tariff measures, chocolate giant Hershey released a statement welcoming the decision from the Trump administration.

“For more than 130 years, we’ve been committed to keeping chocolate affordable and accessible for every family. Cocoa is not grown in the United States and is essential to our US-based manufacturing operations, supporting more than 10,000 American jobs and fuelling economic growth across the country,” the statement reads. “This exemption strengthens our domestic supply chain and enables us to continue investing in American manufacturing.”

The National Coffee Association (NCA) also commented applauding the news, with the company’s president and CEO, Bill Murray, stating that the action to remove reciprocal tariffs on most coffee imports will “ease cost-of-living pressures for the two-thirds of American adults who rely on coffee each day, as well as secure coffee supplies for the US companies who turn every $1 in coffee imports into $43 of US economic value”.

Murray also praised new trade deals secured with Switzerland, Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala, which will deliver further benefits for the coffee supply chain. “NCA urges all trading partners to advance similarly successful negotiations with the United States,” he added.

The roll back on tariffs comes as the Trump administration has faced scrutiny over rising food and beverage prices in the US – though the President has denied claims that his tariff policies have contributed to the higher costs.

Last week, Trump directed the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into major meatpacking companies over alleged price manipulation in the beef market, aiming to defend US cattle producers.

Bill Bullard, CEO of R-Calf USA – a US cattle association representing cattle farmers and ranchers nationwide – commented: “The president’s executive order explains his action was prompted in part by a concern that the domestic cattle industry lacks the capacity to produce enough beef to meet domestic demand. Unfortunately, the president’s concern is valid.”

Bullard said that “decades of failed trade policy” and lack of antitrust law enforcement has fuelled the “monopolisation of the industry by a handful of meatpackers”.

“Unprotected from monopolistic excesses, consumers have been paying inflated prices for beef since at least 2017, and they were doing so while cattle prices were falling,” he added.

“A recent drought exacerbated our industry’s weakened condition, creating a severe supply scarcity while consumer beef demand remained strong. The chasm between supply and demand became so unbalanced that cattle prices broke free from their monopoly-induced restraints and started chasing beef prices upward.”

With consumers now paying “the highest nominal prices in history for beef,” Bullard said the industry must rebuild and expand so the US can begin achieving self-reliance in beef production, adding that R-Calf USA “strongly supports” the meatpacker investigation.

“We pledge to work with President Trump and his administration to restore competition to our diminished US cattle industry so cattle producers and consumers alike can once again be confident that prices for cattle and beef are determined by competitive market forces, not monopoly power and excessive import penetration by foreign beef that is not even labeled as to its country of origin,” he concluded.