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The Trump administration on Thursday announced preliminary trade frameworks with Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador and Ecuador, marking the latest step in the White House’s push to renegotiate U.S. trade relationships across the globe. While the broad outlines are set, senior administration officials said specifics will be finalized in the coming weeks.
Under the frameworks, the tariff rate for most goods from Guatemala, El Salvador and Argentina will remain at 10%, officials said on a briefing call with reporters. Ecuador’s general tariff rate will stay at 15%. But each agreement includes targeted tariff relief on a set of products — particularly those that cannot be produced in the United States.
Administration officials did not provide a full list of affected products, though they pointed to coffee and bananas from Ecuador as examples of items likely to see reductions.
“The United States commits to remove its reciprocal tariffs on certain qualifying exports from Ecuador that cannot be grown, mined, or naturally produced in the United States in sufficient quantities,” the joint framework statement for Ecuador reads.
Officials said the price impact on U.S. consumers for goods such as coffee, cocoa and bananas is still being evaluated. But one senior official suggested the changes will likely benefit Americans.
“Our expectation is that there will be some positive effects for prices for things like coffee, cocoa, bananas,” the official said. “We don’t make those in the United States, so that’s where relief makes sense.”
Beyond tariff reductions, the agreements are aimed at strengthening markets for U.S. exporters. Senior officials emphasized that expanding access for U.S. agricultural products and prohibiting foreign digital services taxes on American companies were core objectives of the negotiations.
The administration has pursued a broad slate of trade deals — formal and informal — with global partners. In recent years, the U.S. has announced agreements of various scopes with the European Union, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
The White House said it intends to finalize the new Latin American frameworks “in the coming weeks,” after additional technical and legal reviews.
As the agreements take shape, officials said the priority remains balancing economic benefits with strategic partnerships in the Western Hemisphere. “These frameworks are about opening doors for U.S. producers while keeping trade fair,” one official said.
