Grist

President Donald Trump, the same man who once said that people promoting electric vehicles should “ROT IN HELL,” bought his own EV this week. He showed off his new Tesla Model S — red, like the Make America Great Again hats — outside the White House on Tuesday, piling compliments on his senior advisor Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, and declaring the company’s vehicles “beautiful.”

It resembled a sales pitch for Musk’s company, the country’s biggest seller of EVs. Tesla has lost more than half of its value since December as sales have plummeted worldwide. With Musk dismantling parts of the federal government as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE, the vehicles have become a toxic symbol for Democrats, a large portion of Tesla owners. Over the past week, protesters have vandalized Tesla dealerships, set Cybertrucks aflame, and boycotted the brand. Liberal Tesla drivers have slapped stickers on their cars that read “I bought this before Elon went crazy.” 

The strong feelings surrounding Musk have already started to scramble the politics around EVs. Trump’s exhibition at the White House on Tuesday was a defense of Musk, who he said had been unfairly penalized for “finding all sorts of terrible things that have taken place against our country.” Yet the bizarre scene of Trump showcasing a vehicle that runs on electricity instead of gas felt almost like a sketch from Saturday Night Live, and not just because the Trump administration has been trying to reverse Biden-era rules that would have sped up the adoption of low-emissions vehicles. Here were the two biggest characters in MAGA politics promoting a technology that’s been largely rejected by their right-wing base. 

Other prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, quickly moved to defend Tesla against vandalism that Trump is labeling “domestic terrorism.” Tesla’s sudden shift from Democratic status symbol to Republican icon has some thinking the controversy around Musk could lead to a bipartisan embrace of EVs.

“He’s uniquely positioned to and has the power to really shape this debate and help bridge the divide here,” said Joe Sacks, executive director of the American EV Jobs Alliance, a nonprofit trying to prevent “silly partisan politics” from stopping a manufacturing boom for electric vehicles. “I’m unsure if that’s what he’s going to use his new perch and his role in the administration to do, but it seems like he has the ability to do that.” 

According to polling the alliance conducted after the November election, Republicans have warmed up to Musk, with 82 percent of those polled saying that Musk is a good ambassador for EVs. A solid majority of Trump voters — 64 percent — said they viewed Tesla favorably, compared with 41 percent of those who voted for Kamala Harris. “Republicans are probably inching towards the idea that there shouldn’t be much of a cultural divide on this product category, if the market leader CEO is sitting next to President Trump in the Oval Office during press conferences,” Sacks said.

The data aligns with a recent analysis from the financial services firm Stifel, which found that Tesla has become more favorable among Republicans as its popularity plunges with Democrats. Compared to August, 13 percent more Republicans are willing to consider purchasing a Tesla.

A Donald Trump-themed Tesla Cybertruck sits in traffic in Washington, D.C.
Christopher Furlong / Getty Images

Yet there are reasons to suspect that EVs will continue to be a hard sell for Republicans. They are typically tradition-minded people who like big cars, not small cars with new technology they’ve never used before, said Marc Hetherington, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-author of the book Prius Or Pickup? “Conservatives don’t have the sensibility that fits with electric vehicles at all,” he said. “So I don’t think that you’re going to see a spike in Tesla sales among conservatives.”

Alexander Edwards, president of the research consultancy Strategic Vision, said that Republicans view gas-powered cars as a more practical purchase for transporting their families from place to place. That’s based on his firm’s surveys, which examine the psychology behind the car choices of about a quarter-million Americans a year. “I think Elon made a bet that I think he’s secretly regretting, that Republicans would come out of the woodwork and say, ‘Yes, we’re going to support you,’” Edwards said.

If they came around to any electric vehicle, however, it might be a Tesla. One of the primary things Republicans care about when it comes to buying a car is that it looks fast and goes fast, and Tesla has seen more Republican buyers for that reason, Edwards said. Democrats have consistently been buying electric vehicles at a rate of 4 to 1 compared to Republicans, but 2 to 1 when it comes to Teslas, according to Edwards’ data. Last year, more Republicans than Democrats bought Teslas for the first time — not because more Republican flocked to the brand, but because Democrats pulled away from it.

For Democrats, who had long been criticized as having a smug attitude for driving a Prius, Teslas offered a cool and desirable alternative with less baggage when they took off in the early 2010s. “Tesla was able to finally give Democratic buyers what they were looking for — a Prius-like image of being thoughtful, combined with the fun and excitement of a real luxury sports car,” Edwards said. That started to change as Musk became a magnet for political controversy, starting with his takeover of Twitter in 2022. A Tesla EV became a symbol of Tesla’s CEO. 

“Doesn’t matter if you’re Republican or Democrat — when you jump into the Batmobile, you become Batman,” Edwards said. “And the same thing is true with the vehicles we purchase. We often want them to show who we are, what we’ve accomplished, what we stand for.”

Of course, there are ways to depolarize electric vehicles that don’t rely on cues from Trump or Musk. Sacks recommends talking about the attributes of electric vehicles: their ability to accelerate faster and brake more crisply, as well as help people save money for every mile they drive, since there’s no need to buy gas. When people have friends or family who own an EV, that also helps break down the cultural divide, he said.

In a way, you could see Trump becoming a salesman for electric vehicles as an example of that very phenomenon, with his self-described “first buddy” convincing him to come around. Just two years ago, Trump complained that EVs needed a charge every 15 minutes and would kill American jobs. But, after Musk endorsed his presidential campaign last summer and donated $288 million, Trump softened his tone, saying that he was in favor of “a very small slice” of cars being electric. “I have to be, you know,” Trump said, “because Elon endorsed me very strongly.” 

On Tuesday, as Trump climbed into his new electric car for the first time, he seemed surprised by what he saw there. “That’s beautiful,” he said, admiring the dashboard. “This is a different panel than I’ve had. Everything’s computer!”

Correction: This story originally misidentified the percentage of Harris voters who viewed Tesla favorably.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline MAGA Teslas? Elon Musk is upending the politics of EVs. on Mar 14, 2025.

The first time Majd Mashharawi left her native Gaza was in 2017, to visit Tokyo. Her flight landed late at night, and she was struck by the airport’s many glittering lights. Then when she got to the urban core, she was astonished. “This is the life people have outside Gaza?” she thought. “Why don’t we have this life?”

Growing up, Mashharawi had been accustomed to life with inconsistent power — as little as three hours a day. “It’s not easy to describe unless you live it,” she said. “Your life is completely messed up. Everything is controlled by others. Your life is controlled by when power is on and off.”

Last week, Israel cut off all electricity to the Gaza Strip in an effort to strengthen its hand against Hamas in ceasefire talks. But in fact, the two parties’ dysfunctional relationship around energy has a long history. In 2007, after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, Israel established a land and sea blockade. This included electricity: Israel came to control 10 power lines running into Gaza, as well as the diesel fuel needed to run its one power plant. The blockade also gave Israel gatekeeping power over any materials — cement, steel, batteries — needed for domestic infrastructure, if Israeli authorities judged they could help militants.

Israel’s security establishment thought this hammerlock over Gazan energy meant leverage over Hamas, said Elai Rettig, a lecturer in energy politics at Bar-Ilan University. As for Hamas, many Gazans felt the group was more interested in its crusade against Israel than addressing public works.

For the people of Gaza, the conflict meant energy poverty. The Strip’s combined power resources could at best meet a quarter to a third of demand. This translated to daily power outages averaging 12 to 16 hours a day. Even worse, Mashharawi said, the outages were unpredictable — whenever the power flicked on, you had to scramble. This maddening unreliability landed especially hard on women, who had to jam all their chores into these fleeting windows of opportunity.

But over the last decade, as solar prices tumbled worldwide, more Israeli leaders started thinking that getting solar into Gaza had a strategic benefit. Gaza’s energy dependence wasn’t cheap. Years of Palestinian counterparties failing to pay Gaza’s power bill — for financial and political reasons — had by 2023 racked up a debt to Israel of 2 billion shekels, about $500 million.

In 2016 and 2017, Israel approved about 100,000 solar panels to enter Gaza, according to researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Satellite imagery soon showed solar arrays sprouting on thousands of buildings across the Gaza Strip, especially in crowded areas like refugee camps. 

Around the time of Mashhawawi’s trip to Tokyo, she’d been working to start a company that manufactured Gaza’s war rubble into bricks. But her production lines were being constantly kneecapped by the start-stop of the grid. It occurred to her that unreliable power was not just a burden in households, like the one she grew up in. Thousands of businesses across Gaza — restaurants, workshops, bakeries — yearned for a source of energy more reliable than what they had. Mashharawi decided to get into the energy business.

She started Sunbox, a social enterprise promoting solar power, in 2017, working doggedly with Israeli authorities to get the equipment approved. She started by selling small arrays — 1 kilowatt and up, about enough to power a home with a small fridge — to families. She soon helped supply bigger projects. Sunbox equipped 20 small desalination plants, the engines of Gazan water production, with solar. It set up solar-charged streetlights so girls could feel more confident walking to school in the wee hours.

Large international organizations like the World Bank and U.N. were also getting in the game, decking hospitals and schools in solar. A 7-megawatt system, partly financed by the International Finance Corporation, or IFC, got bolted onto the Gaza Industrial Estate, a manufacturing complex. The IFC said the smoother power supply made it possible to expand output and hire workers.

It was a renewable revolution born of political dysfunction. The total number of solar arrays in the Gaza Strip vaulted from about a dozen in 2012 to 8,760 in 2019, mostly in the form of small rooftop systems. The extraordinary growth made the Occupied Palestinian Territories one of the fastest-growing renewable energy markets in the world. By 2023, solar represented 25-40 percent of daytime power generation on the ragged Gazan grid, Rettig, of Bar-Ilan University, estimated.

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Then came October 7, 2023. Mashharawi was abroad at the time on business travel. She spent the first two months of the war calling in favors and trying to get her family to Egypt. Meanwhile, Sunbox’s offices and warehouses were destroyed. Mashharawi is mourning the loss of a dear coworker, Mahmoud Abushawish, who she said was venturing north to help a school set up solar — and find some candy for the kids.

Israel’s military assault on Gaza has taken at least 48,000 lives and left its infrastructure in tatters. In February an interim assessment, led by the World Bank, estimated $53 billion in reconstruction needs. It said that 80 percent of Gaza’s power infrastructure is wrecked and that Gazans have experienced a “near-total blackout” since the start of the war. Because Gaza’s water supplies depend on energy to pump and purify it, availability has fallen to sub-critical levels. “There is no water and no electricity. It is stunning just how much damage occurred there,” Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, told Axios after visiting the territory in January.

A ceasefire signed in January, which has been roughly observed even as its first phase expired March 1, has paused the bombing for now. But talks to end the war haven’t gained traction, and many sense that Israel’s ultra-right-wing government, emboldened by Trump’s return, wants to resume fighting. Meanwhile, today most of Gaza’s 2.1 million people live in desperate conditions in displacement camps and other makeshift shelters, often exposed to the elements and possessing minimal access to basic services. Humanitarian groups are begging Israel and the international community to preserve the ceasefire and rush aid to improve conditions at these camps — hopefully, as a precursor to reconstruction.

With Hamas weakened, world powers are deciding the future of Gaza. In February, Trump whimsically proposed to empty Gaza of Palestinians and redevelop it as a luxury riviera. The idea won plaudits from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and categorical rejection by America’s Arab and Western allies. Trump’s vision is out of step with the majority of governments and experts who think that the reconstruction of Gaza can, and should, be done in a way that empowers Palestinians to live better lives on their land, without posing a threat to Israel.

Energy access is minimal in Gaza today. But solar has become one of the few ways to get it. About half of the electrons Gazans are using today come from solar power, according to a December estimate by the Shelter Cluster, a group that coordinates among aid organizations working in Gaza. The other half is coming from diesel, the customary fuel for post-disaster scenarios, but aid groups say Israel is withholding the necessary supplies.

With virtually no new hardware getting in, Gazans have created an internal economy for used cleantech. Solar units and their peripherals are being ripped from roofs, salvaged from rubble, and sold on Facebook. In the many camps of internally displaced people now dotting the strip, you’ll see solar panels leaning against walls and chairs — facing the sun. Some serve commercial ends. “You can find a guy with one panel, and a table, and his business is actually to charge cell phones and to charge batteries,” said one 55-year-old Gazan whose family has been displaced several times during the war.

The aid groups serving these encampments are hoping the most violent stage of the war is past and that they can switch to establishing basic services: food, water, shelter and critical health care. With diesel supplies scant, some are trying to import solar-powered gear instead. The U.N. Development Programme wants to deploy 1,100 prefab housing units, each equipped with a kilowatt of solar and rudimentary plumbing, as part of a $27 million program. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement that setting up off-grid photovoltaic systems is crucial to restoring agricultural activities like irrigation and cold storage.

Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza, a coalition of Palestinian, Israeli, and international NGOs, is supporting Palestinian-run IDP camps with 12,000 people in the south of Gaza with goods and equipment. The group aspires to set up a suite of solar-powered services — electricity, wastewater treatment, even units that produce drinking water from the air — to make them self-sufficient, dignified places to live during reconstruction, whenever that should begin. But in actuality, only a bit of traditional equipment got in before the ceasefire, and all equipment entries have stopped since then, said David Lehrer, a co-leader of the initiative.

Though the war isn’t formally over, many Gazans are returning to their homes, or the places their homes once stood. Some are beginning the early work of clearing rubble and laying to rest the bodies they find — a glimpse of the immense mourning that lies ahead. 

As for the longer term, powerful parties are already competing to advance their respective visions of reconstruction. This month, Egypt, along with the 21 other members of the Arab League, issued a plan meant to counter Trump’s “riviera” concept. It proposes building 2,500 megawatts of power generation — about 20 times what Gaza had before the war — including solar, wind, and fossil-fuel generation. They’re not alone in envisioning Gaza as a renewable-energy powerhouse. The Palestinian Authority, which hopes to replace Hamas as Gaza’s ruling body, is developing a master plan of infrastructural priorities to be finalized with the World Bank, European Union, U.N., and Arab States. Wael Zakout, the Authority’s Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, has said solar and wind farms across Gaza could make it “the first region in the world to reach zero carbon emissions.”

Another idea that’s been mooted — one that Trump endorsed in his first term — is to build a solar farm in the sun-blasted deserts of the Sinai, just across Gaza’s southern border. Proponents say this has twin benefits: It frees up land in Gaza for other uses, and because it’s in Egypt, Israel’s not likely to target it.

But renewable energy won’t be the only resource considered for the repowering of Gaza. A modestly sized natural gas field was discovered offshore of Gaza in 2000. Political and economic conditions kept it from being developed, but the U.S., Egypt, and Israel have described it as an untapped energy reserve for Gaza. In November 2023, Amos Hochstein, a Middle East envoy for President Joe Biden and a former energy executive, said “as soon as we get to the day after and this horrible war ends, there are companies willing to develop those fields.” Supporters say gas-fired electricity would bolster Gaza’s overall energy supply and enable major new industrial infrastructure, like desalination plants and wastewater treatment, that would improve everyday life.

Josef Abramowitz, an Israeli-American solar developer who’s worked with Palestinian partners before, thinks the emphasis on large projects loses the decentralized character that has proven the most successful in Gaza. “The story of Gaza is: big projects that don’t get done,” he said.

Abramowitz’s favored model is minigrids: localized networks of solar panels and battery storage, which he said can supply round-the-clock energy at a fraction the cost of gas-fired generation. They’re flexible, sustainable, and — important in the Gazan context of blockade, frequent war, and poor governance — feasible with or without a grand resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

As for Mashharawi, she said her vision for reconstruction involves something a lot more basic than energy: peace and quiet.

“One to two years from now, where are we going?” she said. “We don’t want to keep building and rebuilding things that are destroyed.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The future of Gaza’s recovery may rely on solar power on Mar 14, 2025.

Farming is a risky business. Growing food for sale has always been subject to unpredictable weather conditions, shifts in price, and the spread of disease. As of last week, farmers in the United States now also have to contend with the second Trump administration’s tariffs.

On Tuesday, March 4, President Donald Trump levied a 25 percent tariff on all goods imported from Canada and Mexico, as well as a 10 percent tariff on goods from China. The news carried significant implications for farmers who depend on the plant nutrient potash, which the U.S. imports almost exclusively from Canada.

But two days later, amid stock market chaos and criticism from business leaders, Trump exempted some goods from the tax and lowered the tariff on non-exempt potash from 25 percent to 10 percent. Trump’s agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, hailed the lower tax on potash as “a critical step in helping farmers manage and secure key input costs at the height of planting season while reinforcing long-term agricultural trade relations.” Although the move was meant to be conciliatory, farmers, agricultural researchers, and economists say that taxing fertilizer at any rate will not only increase costs for U.S. growers, but also could lead to a decline in U.S. soil health.

Most commercially available fertilizers contain a mix of three essential plant nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Potash refers to the mined potassium compounds that go into conventional fertilizer. Estimates vary, but the vast majority of the potash used in the U.S. — at least 85 percent — comes from Canada. 

Potassium helps water and nutrients move throughout a plant, and it’s especially important for crops with “large fruiting bodies,” said Stephen Wood, a senior scientist for agriculture and food systems at the Nature Conservancy, an environmental nonprofit focused on land and water conservation. That includes tomatoes, melons, grapes, peaches, and strawberries. It’s also critical for the development of corn and soybeans, which represent roughly two-thirds of America’s commodity crops by acres planted, according to the most recent Farm Service Agency data available.

Tomatoes are sorted at a farm in Immokalee, Florida. Spencer Platt / Getty Images

In the U.S., corn uses more than 2 million tons of potash a year, according to data from the Economic Resource Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s about a half million tons more than the amount of potash used by soybean crops (around 1.6 million tons), and significantly more than cotton and wheat crops (historically, under half a million tons). That means U.S. corn growers are likely to be hardest hit by the tariff on potash. 

“I think we’re going to see maybe some farmers thinking about, ‘Do I want to grow as much corn?’” said Silvia Secchi, a professor and agricultural economist at the University of Iowa. 

In response to the original version of the tariffs, Kenneth Hartman Jr., the president of the National Corn Growers Association, called on the president to reach a trade deal that would balance national security needs with the needs of farmers. In February, Senator Chuck Grassley wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “I plead [with] President Trump to exempt potash from the tariff.” Grassley represents Iowa, which produces more corn than any other state in the country.

Secchi suspects that it will be hard to measure the exact economic impact that the potash tariff will have on farmers because it is mixed into fertilizers in varying amounts and some crops need it more than others. Bob Hemesath, an Iowa corn grower, said the tariff will hurt all sorts of farmers, given that potash is a key nutrient for all plants. “The 10 percent [tariff] on potash is not good for the ag space or for farming, because it just adds another expense to our already high input costs,” said Hemesath, who is also a board member of the National Corn Growers Association, a trade group.

A farmer plants corn using a tractor and 16-row planter assisted by an on-board computer that monitors and controls seed and fertilizer application. Andrew Sacks / Design Pics Editorial / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Other farmers agreed. “It certainly seems to me that Trump is clueless about agricultural policy and how food is produced in this country,” said Wes Gillingham, board president of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York. 

It’s also possible that making it more expensive for U.S. farmers to access fertilizer could have a negative impact on soil health, which in turn can determine whether soil stores carbon or releases it into the atmosphere. Research shows that potassium plays a role in helping crops become more resilient against diseases. Gillingham worries that if farmers try to “skimp” on potash, they may try to overcompensate by using additional fungicides and pesticides, which can kill microbes that keep soil healthy. 

These pest killers are not a substitute for plants getting all the nutrients they need, but they may help farmers keep up their crop yields. If the tariffs stick around, it could “push farmers to use less optimal fertilizers or deplete soil health over time,” Mark Schonbeck, a senior research associate at the Organic Farming Research Foundation, said over email. 

Hemesath disagreed that farmers will be more likely to use pesticides, which he said “will not help in replacing potash or any fertilizer.” But he added that if the tariffs are still in place next year, many corn farmers will have to decide whether to make do with less fertilizer or simply to eat the higher cost of potash. 

Another possibility is for corn growers to adopt more environmentally friendly agriculture practices to minimize their need for potash. Michael Happ, the program associate for climate and rural communities at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, said he has heard from large-scale commodity growers who are interested in learning about regenerative agriculture. In general, regenerative agriculture advocates advise farmers to ditch commercial fertilizer and switch to using compost or animal manure to keep crops healthy. Other regenerative techniques — like no-till farming, crop rotation, or the use of cover crops — help carbon and other plant nutrients stay in the ground. 

A potash processing facility in Utah. The U.S. produces less than 1 percent of the total global potash supply. Jon G. Fuller / VWPics / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

But the price hike on potash comes at a time when the Trump administration is making it harder for farmers to switch to organic — by erasing USDA webpages that contained information on how to access funding and technical support for these shifts. Last month, Gillingham’s organization and two environmental groups sued the USDA over this data purge. 

“He’s taking away the information, taking away the funding and support for not having to depend on potash imports, and then he’s raising the price of the imports,” said Gillingham. “There’s an irony.”

Happ, from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, said Trump’s attacks on federal workers have also impacted farmers. The USDA fired nearly 6,000 probationary employees last month, though the agency has since been ordered to reinstate the terminated workers for at least 45 days. Trump’s administration is also looking to shut down 59 local offices of the National Resources Conservation Service and Farm Service Agency — two USDA sub-agencies that provide technical and financial assistance to farmers — according to the agricultural publication AgDaily. 

“This is the time where we need lots of expertise and local National Resources Conservation Service officers,” said Happ. “The fact that a lot of these local USDA employees are being fired, and a lot of the local offices are being closed up, it’s happening at the exact wrong time.”

Wood, from the Nature Conservancy, pointed out that large-scale farmers may be best positioned to weather tariff-related price shocks and a loss of USDA resources, because they tend to have more capital. But Colin Carter, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis, said altogether, recent Trump policies will likely make things harder for farms of all sizes.

”It’s going to be more difficult for the small farmer, the family farmer, the organic farmer, and the large farmers,” said Carter. “It’s just across the board. I don’t see any winners here.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump’s fertilizer tariffs could disrupt US crop production, from tomatoes to corn on Mar 14, 2025.

Life these days is expensive. The lingering effects of the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, higher fuel and energy prices, and extreme weather shocks throttling the supply chain have conspired to make many everyday necessities much less affordable. Rising food costs in particular have become a source of financial stress for millions of U.S. households. Though overall inflation has cooled from a record peak in 2022, food prices increased nearly a quarter over the last four years and are expected to continue to climb. 

So far this year, Americans have faced a nationwide bird flu outbreak, propelling the cost of eggs to record levels, while rising temperatures and erratic rainfall across Western Africa are escalating chocolate prices to new highs. Years of drought in the U.S. have also contributed to historically low levels of cattle inventories, hiking up beef prices. The result is skyrocketing supermarket bills, tighter household budgets, and dwindling access to food. 

President Donald Trump’s latest trade decisions aren’t likely to help the situation. Amid a flood of announcements about federal funding freezes, food program terminations, and mass government layoffs, the president has been issuing on-again, off-again sanctions aimed at the United States’ biggest trading partners. In the span of a single week, he enacted blanket tariffs against goods from Mexico, Canada, and China, exempted some products under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, and then doubled tariffs on China before threatening a new set of taxes on Canadian products. On Tuesday, he ordered his administration to double duties on Canadian steel and aluminum imports, which he subsequently walked back to 25 percent before those snapped into effect Wednesday morning, prompting immediate retaliation levies from Canada and the European Union. 

The pendulum-like nature of Trump’s trade policies, economists told Grist, almost certainly means higher grocery store prices. It has already spooked financial markets and prompted major retailers like Target’s CEO Brian Cornell to warn that if some of the promised tariffs go into effect, customers could see sticker shock for fresh produce “within days.” 

“When it comes to extreme weather shocks, which are destroying our supply chains, climate change is increasing prices and creating food inflation,” said Seungki Lee, an agricultural economist at Ohio State University. If policymakers don’t fully account for that by adjusting trade policies, he said, then to some degree, “we will see the compounding impacts of tariffs and climate change-related shocks on the supply chain.”

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Tariffs, or taxes charged on goods imported from other countries, are typically a negotiation tactic waged by governments in a game of international trade, with consumers and producers caught in the crosshairs. When goods enter a country, tariffs are calculated as a percentage of their value and paid by the importer. The importer may then choose to pass on the cost to consumers, which, in the case of something like fresh fruit grown in Mexico, often ends up being everyday people. Given the extent of the United States’ dependence on Canada, Mexico, and China for agricultural trade, farmers, analysts, business leaders, policymakers, and the general public have all raised concerns over the effect of tariffs on grocery store prices and the possibility of trade wars slowing economic growth. 

During the first Trump term, levies on China triggered retaliatory tariffs that decimated agricultural exports and commodity prices, costing the U.S. agricultural industry more than $27 billion, which the government then had to cover with subsidy payouts. To date, the U.S. has not fully recovered its loss in market share of soybean exports to China, its biggest agricultural export market. An analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit organization, found that the 2018 trade war with China was largely passed through as increases in U.S. prices, reducing consumers’ income by about $1.4 billion per month. Rural agricultural sectors in the Midwest and the mountain west were hit harder by China’s retaliatory tariffs than most others, the analysis found. 

This time around, Trump appears to have doubled down on the tactic, though the demands and messaging of his tariff policy have remained wildly unpredictable, with economists dubbing the president an “agent of chaos and confusion.” All told, China, Canada, and Mexico supplied roughly 40 percent of the goods the U.S. imported last year. In 2023, Mexico alone was the source of about two-thirds of vegetables imported to the U.S., nearly half fruit and nut imports, and about 90 percent of avocados consumed nationwide.

Without factoring in any retaliatory tariffs, estimates suggest that the levies imposed by Trump last week could amount to an average tax increase of anywhere between $830 a year and $1,072 per U.S. household. “I’m a little nervous about the increase in tension,” said Lee. “It could lead to an immediate shock in supermarket prices.” 

Canada and China have since responded with tariffs of their own. Canada’s tariffs imposed last week amounted to nearly $21 billion on U.S. goods, including orange juice, peanut butter, and coffee. China imposed 15 percent levies on wheat, corn, and chicken produced by U.S. farmers, in addition to 10 percent tariffs on products including soybeans, pork, beef, and fruit that went into effect on Monday. Meanwhile, Mexico planned to announce retaliatory tariffs but instead celebrated Trump’s decision to postpone. On Wednesday, in response to Trump’s steel and aluminum tariff hike, Canadian officials announced a second $20.7 billion wave of duties and the European Union declared it would begin retaliatory trade action next month for a range of U.S. industrial and farm goods that includes sugar, beef, eggs, poultry, peanut butter, and bourbon. 

With Trump’s planned tariffs, Americans can expect to see fresh produce shipped from Mexico — such as tomatoes, strawberries, avocados, limes, mangos, and papayas, as well as types of tequila and beer — become more expensive. Other agricultural products sourced from Canada, including fertilizer, chocolate, canola oil, maple syrup, and pork are also likely to see cost hikes. New duties on potash, a key ingredient in fertilizer, and steel used in agricultural machinery coming from Canada could also indirectly elevate food prices. Many of these products, such as avocados, vegetable oils, cocoa, and mangoes, are already seeing surging price tags in part because of rising temperatures.

Though there’s no shortage of questions surrounding Trump’s tariff policy right now, James Sayre, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis, said that even this current state of international trade uncertainty will lead to a higher grocery cost burden for consumers.

“All of this uncertainty is really bad for businesses hoping to import, or establish new supply chains abroad, or for any large-scale investment,” said Sayre. “Just this degree of uncertainty will increase prices for consumers and reduce consumer choice at the supermarket … even more than tariffs themselves.” 

All the while, climate change continues to fuel food inflation, leaving American consumers to foot the bill of a warming world and the cascading effects of an administration seemingly set on upending global trade relations. 

“It is actually a little bit hard to anticipate what we can expect from the current administration when we are seeing the burden of food inflation by tariffs or trade, and also at the same time, we have climate-related shocks on the supply chain,” said Lee. “Hopefully we will not see an unexpected compounding effect by these two very different animals.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What Trump’s escalating trade wars mean for your grocery bill on Mar 13, 2025.