America's Talking - Trump rolls back tariffs on over 200 foods in sharp reversal

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

(The Center Square) – Responding to Americans' frustrations over high grocery prices, President Donald Trump issued an executive order Friday exempting more than 200 food products from tariffs. "Certain qualifying agricultural products will no longer be subject to those tariffs, such as certain food not grown in the United States," according to the White House. The executive order includes coffee, beef and bananas. Prices for all three have increased significantly, at least in part due to Trump's tariffs, which the exemptions are intended to address. Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxRead more: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_48667bbe-fdc9-4442-aada-b68654eb48f9.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Good afternoon. Welcome to America's Talking. My name is Morgan Sweeney. I am one of the D.C. reporters for the Center Square. And I am talking with Brett Rowland today about some news regarding tariffs. Brett is also a reporter for the national team. He also covers Illinois for the Center Square. Welcome, Brett. Thanks so much for having me. It's been a busy week. Yes, it has. Not unusual for the Trump administration. tariffs have been central to Trump's economic plan from day one. He talks about them all the time. But recently, he rolled a bunch of them back on agricultural products. Can you explain that a little bit to us? How did that happen? So this one was pretty interesting.

Most of the tariff announcements that we've seen from Trump have come with big truth social announcements or from Oval Office press conferences or other fairly high-profile events. This one, there was no announcement. The White House did post an executive order that signed by Trump that rolled back about tariffs. Sorry, not rolled back. It exempted food, about 200 different food items from tariffs. And that was really a sharp reversal for, Trump. As you mentioned, Trump's been talking about tariffs for decades. He campaigned heavily on the

issue. But the other thing that he said all along the way, at least until last week, was that the tariffs wouldn't affect prices for consumers that other nations would pay the cost of the tariffs and that really would be a non-issue for Americans. As more and more economic data came in, I think that it became clear that that was not the case. And then you had earlier this month the elections, which Democrats won handily. And exit polls from that contest showed that the top concern for voters was affordability and prices. Issues that Trump won on, issues that propelled him to the White House, and issues that they don't feel he's doing as well on. addressing now. Our own polling showed that earlier this year, and we've seen it also from

a few other outlets. So it's, and the exit polling from the, from the election really should hammer that too. So Trump basically said, we're doing this to lower costs, which, you know, the White House has essentially said tariffs wouldn't affect costs. So it was a pretty strong, It was a pretty interesting turn of events. The other interesting thing I think about the announcement was the White House said, and I asked them, late Friday, I asked the White House if there's going to be any exemptions, any additional exemptions, and they said no, which really frustrated some folks, especially the alcohol industry that had been the Distilled Spirits Council, which had been calling for wider exemptions. And I'm sure that there's a number of other companies that want to lower rates, too. But this is, this is, according to the White House, the start and the conclusion of these exemptions. So we'll have to see sort of where things go next.

But, and I think the other thing that we'll have to watch is how quickly prices respond to this order. And I think that'll tell us two things. One, how much tariffs are affecting food prices, specifically with like bananas, coffee, beef, things that we don't generally grow. We have plenty of beef here in the U.S. not enough to feed Americans, but we don't grow bananas here and we don't grow a whole lot of coffee. So those other things that we'll have to see how fast prices come down. I'm sure the Bureau of Labor Statistics is tracking those and we'll watch those. in the coming months, but I think that'll be key to sort of what's, what's happening and what's going to happen next. And didn't you speak with a trade expert after that rollback who had some

things to say? I did. I talked with Scott Lincoln from the Cato Institute. He, and Cato has been active in, in the, in the challenge to President Donald Trump's tariffs, and they've been active and a few other spears, but he essentially said, it's time for all tariffs to go, which was interesting. He basically said, we know that they're pushing up prices. The White House is finally admitting that the tariffs are pushing up prices. And if we don't get, if we don't get rid of the rest of the tariffs, we're going to continue to see prices rise for Americans, which is frustrating Americans. So he called for a sort of general rollback. from what I've seen from the Trump administration, I know you've been watching closely too.

I don't think that one's in the cards. Trump seems fairly committed to tariffs, even in the case that Supreme Court ruling upends the reciprocal tariffs that he's put in place. It looks like he's got other options for tariffs, and I just don't see him backing off at this point. But Trump always surprises me. So we don't know yet. He can be hard to predict. Yeah, I've listened to him a few times this week.

He spoke at this U.S. Saudi investment forum. And I mean, both times I watched him at length. He just talked about how wonderful tariffs are and how they're responsible for basically everything good that's happening right now in the U.S. And making the U.S. the hottest country in the world, as we know. Um, so I just thought that was interesting given this, this policy change, um, on some things. So, um, and then you had mentioned, um, tariff rebate checks. What, what's going on with those? So the latest we've gotten on that is that, um, the Trump did provide a timeline late last week. He said they wouldn't come out before Christmas, which sort of everyone kind of

expected anyway. Um, it's, it's important to mention that Congress will almost definitely need to involved in any sort of rebate check of the magnitude that Trump has floated so far. What he's proposed is $2,000 rebate checks to middle income and below. He hasn't provided income limits or where those payments would be capped. But the checks are pretty substantial and he said they may be coming late next year. So 2026 late. He's said mid and then he said late. So we'll have to see. I'm skeptical that these will appear, but I've been wrong so many times before it's hard to predict on this kind of thing. Maybe Congress will back this. We'll just have to see. We know that some legislation has been introduced that would support rebate checks, but it's nowhere near

complete. And I think that Trump's prediction of early next year is going to be tough to make happen. I mean, we just saw the government close for 43 days. And I think a lot of people are, a lot of lawmakers are still recovering from that. And they also have a January 31st, a January 30th deadline to pass new spending bills, which is an awful narrow time frame, given what we've got going. So if they're going to fit in some sort of tariff rebate in that process, we'd likely see it soon if it's going to actually happen. Well, that was a lot of good information. Yeah, it's always exciting with this administration. just how quickly they can make changes.

So, yeah, thank you for sharing your expertise, our tariff guru, Brett. And yeah, thanks for listening in, everybody.