‘85% of our almonds go overseas’: Fresno County Ag reacts to latest tariff news

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Wednesday was a day of mixed emotions for farmers in and around the Central Valley, after President Donald Trump’s latest moves on tariffs.

While Trump paused increased tariffs on most of the nation’s trading partners for 90 days, he also raised tariffs on China to 125%, as leaders in Beijing hiked tariffs on imports from the U.S. to 84%.

“When it comes to California agriculture, about 40% of what we produce or the 40% of the value is actually exports,” said Ryan Jacobsen, CEO of the Fresno County Farm Bureau.

That means good news for trade with most partners, news that provided a slight sigh of relief, especially in Fresno County – a county Jacobsen says shipped products to 90 countries alone based on data from 2023.

“There’s a little more certainty when it comes to a great majority of our trading partners. Simply, that we’re not looking at the increases or the escalations between countries and hopefully something works out for the positive,” said Jacobsen.

However, China remains one of California’s largest agricultural partners, ranked third behind Canada and the E.U.

The latest data shows that China imports roughly $1.8 billion in California’s agriculture each year.

“Tariffs, you know, stifle trade and 85% of our almonds go overseas. You know, we export billions of dollars of products out of the central valley here into international markets,” said farmer Paul Betancourt, owner of VF&B Farms. 

“Almond prices, finally, after three years, are starting to come back up and I’m starting to get a little bit of breathing room here. And if we lockdown into a full-on trade war, those prices would tank again,” he said.

Still, Betancourt says he is ‘cautiously optimistic’ Trump’s strategy will bring world leaders to the negotiating table and create better trading leverage for U.S. farmers and producers.

“We’re competing against global competitors who pay their help cheaper. They have less regulatory burdens. We can compete against that because of the quality we produce and the productivity we achieve,” Betancourt told me. “But we can’t have, you know, both the financial and the phytosanitary standards stacked against us.”

But still, he hopes the tariffs are called off as soon as possible, and that the trade war doesn’t escalate further.

Only time will tell.