Seven months after unleashing the largest trade war in recent history, US President Donald Trump is beginning to rectify some of his decisions. If on Friday it reached an agreement with Switzerland to reduce the average tariff from 39% to 15%, in exchange for the Swiss pharmaceutical laboratories (the largest being Roche and Novartis) making million-dollar investments to set up production plants in the United States, and another with Argentina, which significantly expands the access of Argentine beef to the United States market () at noon on Saturday it was the Government of Ecuador that confirmed that the United States will proceed to eliminate the 15% tariff on 105 goods.
“Several agricultural and natural products, particularly those that are not significantly produced in the US market, will no longer be subject to reciprocal tariffs as of November 13, 2025. These include: coffee, cocoa, pineapples, mangoes, pitahaya, other tropical fruits, fruit juices, spices, bananas, hearts of palm, plantains, oranges, tomatoes and others,” he stressed.
A decision similar to the one it has adopted with beef purchases in Brazil. The imposition of a tariff on purchases of Brazilian meat coincided with a substantial reduction in the cattle herd in the United States, causing an unprecedented increase in costs. , the highest rate since January, with especially pronounced increases such as those of coffee (18.9% in twelve months), minced meat (12.9%) or bananas (6.9%). The agreements with Argentina, Brazil or Ecuador try to reduce the import bill and bring down the price of basic foods.
As happened with the rest of the countries, the imposition of tariffs was about (the negative difference between exports and imports of goods) of the United States, the largest in the world, which reached 1.2 trillion dollars at the end of 2024. But Trump did not consider that the imposition of these taxes could indirectly make purchases of products that are not grown in the United States more expensive and that this was going to have a direct impact on the pockets of American citizens through the inflation.
