Trump administration officials are racing to reframe the president’s tariff rollbacks, as critics say the White House is capitulating on its signature economic policy.
Late Friday, the White House announced the president had signed an executive order exempting more than 200 food products, including bananas, beef and coffee, from the so-called reciprocal tariffs he has imposed on U.S. trading partners.
The move comes as the trade duties have begun to face economic, legal and political resistance that cast doubt on their efficacy.
Some two-thirds of voters who helped sweep Democrats into power in a host of races earlier this month said President Donald Trump hasn’t lived up to his promises to curb inflation and improve the economy, according to NBC News polling.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court could issue an opinion in the coming months striking down the central argument Trump has made as to why he has the power to apply seemingly arbitrary tariff rates on dozens of countries.
White House officials are insisting the rollbacks do not amount to a retreat from the president’s staunch defense of tariffs as an economic driver.
“This is nothing new,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday in response to a question of whether the reversals represent an acknowledgement that the policies have contributed to rising costs.
Hassett cited previous moves by the administration to exempt certain products from duties following trade-framework agreements.
One day earlier, Hassett told ABC News’ “This Week” that price increases for some goods weren’t being solely caused by tariffs — but acknowledged that prices could start coming down as imports into the U.S. climb.
He also sought to blame former President Joe Biden, whose administration oversaw a post-pandemic inflation surge.
“We understand that people still feel the pain of the high prices, but we’re closing the gap fast,” Hassett said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent likewise sought to cast blame for rising beef prices backward.
“The beef market is a very specialized market,” Bessent began. “It goes in long cycles. And this is the perfect storm, again, something we inherited.”
In addition to Friday’s broad rollback of food-related tariffs, Trump also announced Friday that he was significantly reducing tariffs on goods from Switzerland, which had faced some of the highest duties yet announced during Trump’s second term.
A day earlier, the White House said many food products from four Central and South American countries would be exempted from levies after they agreed to trade frameworks with the U.S.
The U.S. economy continues to contend with stubborn inflation — especially for many everyday grocery items. Orange juice prices have increased approximately 29% year on year, while beef costs are up 13.5%, according to the latest NBC News grocery price tracker data.
While some of the factors influencing the cost increases are not directly tied to tariffs, economists have estimated that consumers have been shouldering more than 50% of the overall price increases seen from Trump’s import duties.
Businesses and analysts alike continue to sound the alarm on the impact of tariffs, saying they are compounding the stubborn inflation that has taken root since the pandemic and holding back investment decisions.
The U.S. manufacturing sector — consisting of industries the administration had hoped would benefit most directly from the trade duties — has been particularly hard-hit, with many indicators suggesting it is in recession. Between February and August, manufacturing employment fell by some 41,000 jobs.
Small businesses, whose owners tend to lean more conservative, have also seen an outsize impact from tariffs.
Key elements of Trump’s tariff regime now also face legal jeopardy, however, as the Supreme Court weighs whether Trump illegally bypassed Congress when he imposed reciprocal duties and fentanyl-related tariffs using emergency powers authorization.
Oral arguments before the court earlier this month indicated that multiple justices believed there were constitutional limits built into the emergency tariff powers the administration has claimed during Trump’s second term. A decision is expected before the end of the year.
In a statement Monday, a White House spokesman said the administration remains “committed to the tariff policies that have secured trillions in investments to make and hire in America along with unprecedented trade deals for American workers, industries, and farmers.”
“President Trump’s September 5th executive order specifically laid out various natural resources and agricultural products not produced in the United States that could be eligible for tariff-free treatment in the context of trade deals — the President’s recent tariff announcement reflects how the Administration has now secured a critical mass of trade deals with countries in the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and Asia,” spokesman Kush Desai said.
But whether all the products that were most recently exempted from tariffs fall into the category of “not produced in the United States” is doubtful.
Beef and oranges are produced in the United States, for example, and yet they were included on Friday’s list of broad exemptions from all reciprocal tariffs — not just from duties on imports from countries where the U.S. has secured trade deals.
In the Friday executive order that rolled back all reciprocal tariffs on certain food products, Trump cited “current domestic demand for certain products, and current domestic capacity to produce certain products.”
That definition goes beyond the strict categories of products the United States does not produce and products from countries with which the U.S. has trade agreements.
It signals that a desire to cool off price increases is increasingly being seen as a justification for tariff exemptions on some products, like beef.
Last week’s announcements are not the first time Trump has signaled a willingness to reconsider his trade stances.
Throughout the spring and summer, the president frequently floated higher duties on a trade partner, usually amid ongoing negotiations, only to backtrack on them later. Some on Wall Street eventually dubbed the inevitable reversals “TACO” — “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The back-and-forth announcements served to whipsaw markets, with the president often standing down after major stock indexes experienced declines in response to his threats.
It is unlikely tariffs are going away entirely: The White House has signaled it would likely seek to reimpose some duties via other statutes if the Supreme Court rules against Trump’s emergency authority.
Just last month, the president announced a slew of new duties on imports including furniture, heavy trucks and pharmaceuticals.
The tariffs have also raised billions in revenues — though even with those increased funds, the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has said U.S. lawmakers will “need to identify substantially more deficit reduction to put debt on a sustainable path.”
Any ruling that calls for refunds of the collected funds could have unforeseen consequences on the economy.
Still, some analysts say the recent tariff rollbacks may have only just begun.
“What matters more for the outlook … is the signal that this move sends about the directional shift of future tariff adjustments,” Bernard Yaros, economist with Oxford Economics research group, wrote in a note published Saturday.
“As we near the (2026 midterm) election, the administration may broaden these tariff exemptions to a wider swathe of food products.”