Agriculture is the inbound side of a two-way tariff story
US agriculture — NAICS 11 (Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting) — has been one of the most tariff-affected sectors of the post-2018 trade-policy cycle, but in a way that is structurally different from manufacturing. Manufacturing sectors absorb inbound tariffs on parts and intermediate goods that then get priced into finished output. Agriculture sits on both sides of the ledger: the United States imports certain crops, processed products, and equipment, which carry the standard MFN duty plus any Section 301 layer if the origin is China; and the United States exports much larger volumes of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and meat, which face retaliatory tariffs imposed by partner countries in response to US trade actions. The Phase 41 retaliatory pages on this site cover the export-side narrative in depth; this industry hub focuses on inbound flow.
The seven primary product categories tracked here cover the bulk of inbound agricultural imports outside of the bulk-grain export commodities. Fresh produce — bananas, avocados, tomatoes, berries — accounts for the largest single category by trade value, drawing almost entirely from Mexico, Central America, and Chile. Coffee and tea draw from Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, and Ethiopia. Seafood draws from a much broader country list led by Chile, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Olive oil and cooking oils draw from Spain, Italy, and Tunisia. Animal feed includes soybean meal and corn-based feed components moving on round-trip routes. Agricultural equipment — tractors, combines, and irrigation systems — flows from Germany, Italy, and Japan.
Why MFN matters more here than in manufacturing hubs
Unlike electronics or primary metals, agricultural imports are not blanket-covered by a single dominant authority. The dominant layer for most agricultural HTS chapters is the column-one general MFN duty, which varies widely by product. Fresh fruit and vegetables under HTS Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 typically run between zero and around eleven percent depending on the subheading, with significant seasonal variation in the rate schedule for some categories. Coffee enters duty-free under HTS Chapter 9. Tea has a small specific duty per kilogram. Seafood under HTS Chapter 3 runs between zero and around five percent for most commercial categories. Animal feed and oilseed derivatives under HTS Chapter 23 sit between zero and modest single-digit percentages. The USITC HTS Online Reference Tool is the canonical per-line rate authority.
The Section 301 China layer attaches on top of the MFN baseline for any agricultural product imported from China. For most of the categories listed in this industry hub, China is not the leading origin — so the Section 301 layer is not the dominant cost driver across the sector as a whole. Where Section 301 becomes material is on specific subheadings where Chinese suppliers do hold significant share: garlic, certain processed vegetables, frozen seafood, and certain spice categories. For those subheadings, the Section 301 List 1 rate of twenty-five percent stacks on top of the MFN duty, producing combined effective rates that have driven measurable sourcing substitution into Mexico, Vietnam, and India over the 2018 to 2025 window.
The 2025 Chinese soybean rollback and what it means
One of the most notable agricultural trade-policy developments of 2025 was the Chinese government's November rollback of its retaliatory tariff on US soybeans, which had stood at twenty-five percent since the 2018 retaliation cycle. The rollback brought the rate to zero effective November 10, 2025, and was tied to broader bilateral trade discussions. For US soybean exporters, the rollback restored normal sourcing economics into the Chinese feed and crush market. For data systems tracking retaliatory exposure, the rollback also matters: a zero-rate retaliation event remains in the historical record as evidence of past dispute action, but it does not contribute to current landed-cost calculations. The retaliatory exposure summary on this industry hub correctly excludes the soybean rollback from the active count.
Two retaliatory measures targeting agricultural products remain active as of the 2026 calendar year. The European Union 2025 bourbon tariff at twenty-five percent targets US bourbon and whiskey exports under the spirit categories — though bourbon falls outside the strict NAICS 11 boundary, it intersects with this hub's broader agricultural-trade narrative through the underlying grain supply chain. The Mexico 2025 corn tariff at fifty percent targets US corn feed exports and applies to a tariff-rate quota structure rather than a flat percentage on every shipment. Both actions are documented in the relevant foreign-ministry gazettes and are tracked in the Federal Register cross-references for any subsequent US response actions.
USMCA and the role of bilateral preference programmes
For inbound agricultural imports from Canada and Mexico, the operative trade framework is the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which entered into force on July 1, 2020. For USMCA-qualifying goods that meet the rules-of-origin tests for each agricultural chapter — which generally require the product to be wholly obtained in a USMCA member or to undergo sufficient processing in a member country — the duty rate drops to zero regardless of any general MFN baseline that would otherwise apply. That preference is what allows Mexican fresh-produce shipments to compete on price with domestic US production, and it is the reason avocados, tomatoes, and berries from Mexico carry a duty cost of zero on the entry summary.
The qualifying determination is per-product and per-shipment, and the importer of record bears the documentation burden. The USMCA Certificate of Origin must be available on demand, and the supporting records demonstrating compliance with the chapter-specific rules of origin must be retained for the statutory record-keeping period. For agricultural shipments that fail to qualify — typically because of a third-country input component that breaks the substantial-transformation test — the entry reverts to the standard MFN rate, and any Section 122 surcharge or other applicable layer attaches as normal. The economics of qualifying versus not qualifying often turn on whether the chapter-specific rule allows for regional value content treatment of inputs.
The agricultural equipment subset
Agricultural equipment is the one category in this industry hub that behaves more like a manufacturing import than an agricultural import. Tractors, combine harvesters, balers, and irrigation systems fall under HTS Chapter 84 — the general machinery chapter — and carry an MFN duty between zero and around four percent depending on the subheading. The leading origins are Germany (John Deere and CLAAS production overlap), Italy (specialised wine and olive equipment), and Japan (Kubota and Yanmar small-tractor share). China is a minority origin for certain low-end small-equipment categories, where Section 301 List 1 attaches at twenty-five percent, but the dominant flow from Germany and Italy passes through the MFN baseline without an additional layer.
The Section 232 product scope does not extend to agricultural equipment under the current proclamation set, which keeps the dominant tariff exposure for this subset squarely on the MFN duty and any Section 301 layer for Chinese-origin units. The trade-value distribution confirms the European concentration: USITC DataWeb reports German agricultural equipment imports as the single largest country-product flow in this category for the 2024 calendar year.
Section 122 surcharge applicability and the exemption carve-outs
The uniform Section 122 surcharge enacted in February 2026 applies across most product categories as a flat ten percent layer on top of the MFN baseline, but the implementing proclamation carved out specific exemptions for certain agricultural categories considered essential to food security or already covered by separate authorities. The exemption list published alongside the Section 122 action covers critical agricultural inputs that fall under the broader food-security framework and certain pharmaceutical-precursor categories. For an inbound agricultural shipment that falls outside the exemption list, the Section 122 surcharge stacks on the MFN duty as a separate ten-percent layer, raising the combined effective rate by a corresponding amount.
The interaction between Section 122 and USMCA matters here: a USMCA-qualifying shipment receives zero duty treatment on the MFN component, and the Section 122 surcharge does not attach to USMCA-qualifying goods under the current proclamation interpretation. This is the structural reason Mexican fresh-produce shipments continue to enter at zero duty cost despite the Section 122 layer applying to non-USMCA fresh-produce origins. For sourcing managers, the operative analysis is to compare the all-in landed cost of a USMCA-qualifying Mexican shipment against the same cargo from a non-USMCA origin carrying both the MFN duty and the Section 122 surcharge.
How to verify a specific agricultural HTS rate
For inbound shipments, the verification path is to look up the relevant chapter in the USITC HTS Online Reference Tool, identify the column-one general rate as the MFN baseline, check whether USMCA qualification applies for any Canadian or Mexican origin, and add any Section 301 layer for Chinese origin. The USITC DataWeb tariff database cross-references the rate against actual customs collections by quarter, which confirms that the duty is being enforced in practice. For employment and industry-economic context, the BLS QCEW industry index provides the NAICS 11 establishment and employment counts. The Department of Agriculture publishes commodity-specific market summaries that triangulate against the HTS-level figures for any per-product analysis.
