The top economic priority for the United States under President Donald Trump has been to reduce imports, increase exports, and create jobs. “By prioritizing American workers, manufacturers, and energy producers, the administration is strengthening the nation’s economic foundation and reducing reliance on foreign supply chains,” said a White House blurb. “These policies are driving sustained growth, expanding opportunity, and ensuring the American economy remains strong, competitive, and resilient for years to come.”
Yet not all of these new directives are working as intended. Domestically, Trump’s agricultural plans are conflicting: give farmers tax and customs exemptions, but then limit their ability to secure less expensive energy from renewables.
Internationally, “every American industry that makes things … suffered at least a little when … Trump slapped tariffs on other countries,” said The Economist. “With the conflict in Iran unresolved and the Strait of Hormuz still blocked, those same businesses face higher costs. Few have suffered more than American farmers.”
Price pressures could worsen the food supply shortage in the world’s largest consumer market. For Egypt, that could be an opportunity to send more food to America.
U.S. developments
According to The Economist, “even before Trump took office, [farmers] were grappling with record costs.” That included rising prices for land (6% between 2020 and 2025), seeds (18%), labor (50%), and, critically, interest expenses (73%).
In 2025, Trump was adamant his economic policies would support farmers. According to a White House statement, farmland owners would be permanently exempt from paying their estate tax (aka death tax). There would also be a permanent 20% tax break for small agricultural businesses. Finally, Trump signed a directive enabling farmers to “defer paying capital gains taxes when selling their farmland to another farmer who will keep the land in agricultural use.”
But such directives may not be enough. “Farming is an inherently risky business,” Mike Lavender, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, told Time magazine in March. “But I think what we’ve seen over the past 12-plus months is something different.”
In March, the Trump administration halted the Rural Energy for America Program, which encouraged farmers to use solar panels, thereby lowering their costs and, in turn, the cost of growing food.
Furthermore, “in 2025, the USDA (Department of Agriculture)… paused funding that supported farmers adopting conservation practices, after many had already paid the upfront costs themselves,” Time reported.
As a result, fewer farmers will be able to adopt more sustainable options, which “can make the farmer more productive and business more viable, but also support soil health and climate resilience and carbon sequestration, depending on the practice,” Lavender said.
Meanwhile, “hundreds of positions at USDA departments across the country were cut last year, resulting in fewer staffers being available to help farmers access remaining federal programs and funding,” reported Time.
Foreign risk
Food cultivation costs rose further when Trump introduced tariffs on a broad range of goods. As of April 24, the U.S. Tariff Rates Tracker, a government portal, reported “10% reciprocal tariffs on nearly all imports.” Exemptions include pharmaceuticals, energy, certain electronics, and aerospace. Meanwhile, China, the United States’ biggest supplier of goods, has tariffs of 7.5% to 100%, while imported steel and aluminum (used in building farm equipment) are subject to 50% duties.
For the U.S. agricultural sector, these tariffs amplify cost pressures. In its February earnings call, John Deere, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of farm equipment, said the company “absorbed $600 million in tariff-related costs in 2025” and expects that amount to “double this year.”
Meanwhile, Dave Peters, a semi-retired U.S. corn farmer in Iowa, told The Economist in late April that “farmers now need four times as many acres to make the same” dollar amount in profit, as margins decreased dramatically despite rising consumer prices. “By mid-2025, [while] electronics and chemicals makers’ prices had risen by 2%-3%, agricultural prices were up by about 10%.”
Another complication of the U.S. tariff policy is that domestic farmers have become less competitive internationally. In 2025, food exports were $170.5 billion, down from $176 billion in 2024 — a 3.1% decline. That drop, however, wasn’t consistent across all categories. Soybean exports to China, for example, dropped from 5.9 million tonnes in 2024 to zero after the Chinese government banned U.S.-grown soy in response to Trump’s tariffs. Before the tariff, China bought more than half of U.S. soybean exports.
Those troubles have been compounded by the selective blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, through which oil, natural gas, and fertilizers pass. As a result, their global prices jumped 55%, over 140%, and 32% to 50%, respectively, since February.
In terms of energy, “unlike other industries, which can rely on cheap American natural gas and electricity, farmers depend on diesel fuel, the price of which has jumped by 40% since the end of February,” The Economist reported.
Fertilizer costs are a “more damaging blow,” the publication noted. “A third of the world’s fertilizer supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz; its closure has sent prices soaring by as much as fuel.”
These developments come as “crop prices have barely budged in years,” The Economist said. A U.S. farmer will “sell a box of yellow squash for the same price he did a decade ago. In 2025, farm bankruptcies rose by 46%.”
Potential opening?
In Egypt, the government is increasingly focused on localizing food industries to boost exports. “The food industries sector is among the most vital and fastest-growing sectors in the Egyptian economy,” newly minted Minister of Industry Khaled Hashem told the media in April. “The ministry’s commitment is to provide comprehensive support to serious companies contributing to the localization of food industries and the enhancement of value-added production.”
In fiscal year 2025/2026, the United States bought dried foods, fruits, vegetables, and frozen fruits and vegetables from Egypt, according to AmCham Egypt’s research. This produce, plus products from agriculture-related industries, including iron and steel (to manufacture agricultural equipment in the U.S.) and phosphatic fertilizers, account for 22% of Egypt’s exports to the world’s largest economy.
With U.S. agriculture (and related industries) facing rising costs, Egypt-based agricultural companies and farmers may have a wider window to export more food to the world’s largest consumer market.
One advantage for Egypt is all its goods are subject only to America’s global baseline 10% tariff, and it has maintained solid relations with the current U.S. administration.
The government is also pushing to increase overall food exports. “Egypt aims to increase its food exports to $14 billion this year, marking a 25% growth compared to last year,” Minister of Agriculture Alaa Farouk told local media in early April.
A third major advantage is that many of Egypt’s food exports are products U.S. consumers demand, such as citrus fruits, onions and garlic, strawberries and pomegranates, and processed foods. Smaller categories include sweet potatoes, grapes, mangoes, beans and dates. According to Grocery Trade News (GTN), a specialized U.S.-based platform, U.S. “core [food] categories” include citrus, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, potatoes and onions.
“These categories carry the pricing power, volume and reliability needed to shape store performance,” reported Adam Petto, a journalist at GTN. “Retailers balance domestic farms with greenhouse partners and international growers to maintain year-round consistency.”
GTN noted U.S. demand for foreign-sourced produce will likely increase as global warming shortens harvests and causes drought. The most affected produce that Egypt can supply includes citrus fruits, tomatoes and peppers, said Petto.
Lastly, “Gen Z [in the United States] brings new habits into the produce department,” Petto said. “Health drives most buying decisions. Shoppers want fresh ingredients for immunity, daily nutrition and general well-being. Simple, clean labels are more important than before, and stores highlight these benefits in merchandising.”
Gated market?
Increasing food exports will require Egypt-based agribusinesses to comply with domestic regulations. According to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) website, foreign food producers or overseas storage facilities supplying produce to the United States must register with the FDA.
Second, food exporters need to notify the FDA a shipment is incoming before it reaches America’s ports.
Also, exporters must provide U.S.-based buyers with proof of compliance with the U.S. Foreign Supplier Verification Program, enacted in 2011.
Imported produce must also be labeled and packaged to meet all U.S. packaging and FDA safety requirements. This includes standards set by the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act.
Lastly, food imports must be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate — an official document from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service or a similar document from state or county authorities.
Fork in the road
Garcia Polanco, government relations director at the National Young Farmers Coalition, told Time he “worries that if we don’t see action soon, we might see an exodus as more and more [U.S. farmers] turn away from the profession.”
A glimmer of hope may be a forthcoming update to the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (aka The Farm Bill), which is under discussion in the Senate. It “expands investments in rural communities, brings science-backed management back to our national forests and restores regulatory certainty in the interstate marketplace,” according to the House Committee on Agriculture. “These programs improve risk management tools for specialty crop producers, lower energy costs in rural America and prioritize American commodities on the global stage.”
It would also “expand producers’ access to credit, promote precision agriculture, and enhance conservation programs for working lands.”
Kari Lydersen, a contributing reporter for Canary Media, stressed that the Farm Bill would be a proverbial fork in the road for U.S. farmers. “The House’s proposed bill would damage REAP (Rural Energy for America Program) further by enshrining Trump-administration restrictions in law.”
However, Tom Harkin, a former Democratic senator from Iowa, told Canary Media, “The Farm Bill could make improvements to REAP by statute in order to correct misguided decisions by the department.” It could also reverse a decision by the Trump administration to “no longer use taxpayer dollars to fund solar panels on productive farmland or allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in USDA projects,” Harkin added.
Still, the United States is on the clock. “The farmers I work with, they know what they are signing up for. They know it’s hard work. They know it’s a lot of labor. They know they can barely break even,” Polanco told Time. “But there’s only so many times you can take a hit and not fall apart.”
How that dynamic plays out in the coming few years will inevitably determine the sustainability and size of the opportunity for Egyptian agricultural companies to export to the world’s largest consumer market.
