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Tariff changes add “new” kind of volatility to ag manufacturing

A global equipment manufacturer says the on again off again tariffs create a new type of volatility in the manufacturing sector.

Eric Raby is the senior vice president for the Americas with CLAAS. “You always have currency exchange. You have weather conditions, you have commodity prices and now we’ve introduced into that, I would say a fairly unstable environment for import and export tariffs.”

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he was implementing a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for non-retaliating countries.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters on Wednesday the pause allows the administration to negotiate new trade agreements. “The only certainty we can provide is that the US is going to negotiate in good faith. We can only assume that our allies will too.”

China was not included and the President said duties increase to 125 percent.

Raby tells Brownfield, “We’re probably going to see a lot of stops and starts, just as we’ve seen over the last 24 or 48 hours or even the last 10 minutes. That’s going to continue on for a while, but I think there’s a willingness on everyone’s part to try to ease this as much as possible for the consumer (and) for the farmer.”

The Administration says the pause means a universal 10 percent tariff will be in place for all countries including Mexico and Canada.

Eric Raby, CLAAS: