President Donald Trump has exempted hundreds of food items from his global tariff scheme, he announced Friday. The tariff walkback comes as the White House seeks to alleviate Americans’ affordability concerns that likely played a role in the 2025 elections.

The tariff exemptions target foods whose prices have risen sharply over the past year, most of which are not or cannot be grown at a large scale in the United States, due to climate requirements. For instance, Trump removed his tariffs on coffee, tea, spices, tropical fruits, various nuts, and avocados. Beef imports (which faced a 50% tariff if coming from Brazil) were also exempted.

According to September data (the last month of data before Senate Democrats’ prolonged government shutdown), the price of roasted coffee had increased 18.9% year-over-year, while the price of ground beef had risen 12.9%, and the price of bananas had risen 6.9%. While weather issues affected agricultural output in some countries, tariffs were also to blame for the rising prices.

In April, President Trump declared that America’s longstanding trade deficits constituted an emergency, and he subsequently imposed tariffs of 10% or more on nearly every country in the world (Executive Order 14257). Many countries negotiated those rates down in subsequent trade deals. However, multiple businesses and states have challenged the constitutionality of Trump’s authority to claim such a unilateral tariff power. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on an expedited schedule earlier this month.

“I have received additional information and recommendations from various officials who, pursuant to my direction, have been monitoring the circumstances involving the emergency declared in Executive Order 14257,” Trump said in a Friday announcement. “After considering the information and recommendations these officials have provided to me, the status of negotiations with various trading partners, current domestic demand for certain products, and current domestic capacity to produce certain products, among other things, I have determined that it is necessary and appropriate to further modify the scope of products subject to the reciprocal tariff imposed under Executive Order 14257, as amended.”

“Specifically, I have determined that certain agricultural products shall not be subject to the reciprocal tariff imposed under Executive 14257, as amended,” Trump clarified.

Trump himself attempted to downplay the adjustment in comments shortly after the change was announced. “We just did a little bit of a rollback on some foods like coffee,” he told reporters on Air Force One. The president pushed back on the suggestion that businesses passed the cost of the tariffs along to consumers in the form of higher prices, replying, “I say they may, in some cases,” but “to a large extent they’ve been borne by other countries.”

However, on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled that the White House would soon lower tariffs on products not produced in the U.S. as a way to bring prices down. “You’re going to see some substantial announcements over the next couple of days in terms of things we don’t grow here in the United States — coffee being one of them, bananas, other fruits, things like that,” he said on Fox News. “That will bring the prices down very quickly.”

Bessent’s framing effectively concedes the point that tariffs result in higher consumer prices — what the editors of National Review call “admitting the obvious.” And the Trump administration’s decision to remove tariffs on foreign-produced foods, as part of a strategy to address affordability concerns, suggests that his understanding is shared across the administration more broadly.

In other words, the Trump administration either always realized — or certainly realizes now — that tariffs raise consumer prices, just like any other tax. President Trump was hoping that Americans would stick with him through some price turmoil while he muscled his way to splendid trade deals and a correction of a trade imbalance in goods — which he sees as a great injustice perpetrated against the United States.

However, the 2025 election signaled that voters were not, in fact, willing to endure prolonged price increases after years of Bidenflation.

To its credit, the Trump White House is heeding the wishes of voters and seeking ways to bring down prices — even to the point of exempting some goods from tariffs.

These tariff exemptions could be a sign of things to come. If this gesture elicits a positive response, the administration may follow up by exempting even more goods from the tariffs, thus bringing down even more prices on imported goods. Or the whole conversation may be rendered moot if the Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s tariff regime as unconstitutional, which would send all consumer prices hurtling back toward their natural state.