A California supermarket staple could become cheaper under Trump tariffs

San Francisco Chronicle​

07-05-2025

President Donald Trump's tariff war is expected to make the price of a host of goods go up.
But almonds — California's most valuable agricultural export — may get a bit cheaper.
Almonds from California make up about 80% of the world's supply, with a significant amount exported to China, a country subject to President Donald Trump's highest tariff — 145% — which took effect last month. The Chinese government briskly retaliated with a 125% tariff on U.S. imports.
If China buys fewer almonds, Central Valley growers will have to sell more of the crop domestically. That could mean slightly lower prices at the supermarket, even as almond growers take a hit.
'There's no question: more almonds have to get sold on the U.S. market,' said Daniel Sumner, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California Davis. 'If there's more of them around, the only way to get them sold is at a lower price.'
Consumers shouldn't expect half-priced almonds or bargain bin almond milk, Sumner said, noting that many factors go into supermarket pricing. But almond prices are likely to decrease slightly — a sharp contrast to a number of other food items that could see rising price tags due to tariffs.
But even that slight grocery-store discount could correspond to major losses for almond growers who already operate on razor-thin margins.
California-grown almonds brought in $4.7 billion in export revenue in 2022, according to the state's Department of Food and Agriculture. China was the fourth-largest foreign market for almonds that year, importing about $269 million, behind the European Union, India and the United Arab Emirates.
California could lose out on up to $868 million in lost export revenue from almonds if other countries impose retaliatory tariffs, according to a study from the University of California Davis that assumed tariffs of 60% from China and 10% from the rest of the world.
During Trump's first term, Chinese retaliatory tariffs hit almond prices hard, causing per-pound prices to drop from $2.50 to $1.40, the study found. The EU, which imported $1.48 billion in California almonds in 2022, approved counter-tariffs in April including a 25% tariff on U.S. almonds, which would go into effect in December. More retaliatory tariffs could materialize from other almond markets if the White House's universal 10% tariffs go into effect. Trump paused implementation for 90 days on April 9.
'We're bracing ourselves for some negative impacts,' said Joe Sansoni, an almond grower and former president of the Merced County Farm Bureau. 'We're not gonna see the price that we should.'
Jenny Holtermann, president of the Kern County Farm Bureau and co-owner of almond farm H&H Family Farms, said almond prices were 'just starting to rebound' from the impacts of COVID-19 and the U.S.-China trade war during Trump's first term. With almond prices below $2.00 a pound, Holtermann has not turned a profit in recent years; she said it costs her about $1.75 to grow each pound, a figure that could rise if tariffs increase the price of other farming inputs like fertilizer, irrigation parts and tractors.
'It is very hard to make a living off of farming anymore,' said Holtermann, who supplements her income by working as a water consultant for two nonprofits.
It's too soon to tell exactly how much foreign demand for California almonds will drop. That's because last year's crop has already been sold and the next harvest isn't until fall. A historic honeybee die-off over the winter could result in lower-than-usual yields for almonds, and the fast-fluctuating tariffs make predictions challenging.
'Nobody really knows what tariffs are going to look like in the fall,' said Aaron Smith, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Berkeley. 'People are kind of shrugging their shoulders a little bit and assuming that 145% tariffs are kind of ridiculous and that they're not going to persist.'
The tariffs' impact also depends on how much foreign customers are willing to pay for almonds. Because California dominates the world's almond supply, other countries can't easily buy non-American almonds; they'd have to opt out of buying almonds altogether.
'The big question is whether people think about almonds as something where they're like, 'Oh, I'm just going to eat walnuts instead or some other nut instead,'' Smith said, 'or whether it's a specific thing of, 'I really love my almonds.''
But even if foreign demand drops only slightly and almond farmers see just a 5% drop in the wholesale price, the industry would take 'a significant hit' that could get passed along to farm workers or contractors in the form of lower wages, Smith said.
Drops in the wholesale price don't map on perfectly to drops in consumer prices. A 10% drop in the farm price could translate into just a 3% discount in the checkout line — 'pennies,' if that, Sumner said. That discrepancy is because supermarket pricing factors also include processing, shipping and marketing, he said.
Because almond trees can take decades to cultivate, growers can't easily change crops. A 5% drop in price would likely not be dramatic enough for them to yank out trees, Smith said.
The full impacts on almond growers depend on another major variable: whether the White House will provide relief funds.
Unlike crops like soybeans, rice and cotton, the federal government does not usually offer subsidies for almonds, Smith said. But the government broke from that precedent during Trump's first term and shelled out tens of millions in direct aid for almond farmers, resulting in historic profits for some growers, he said.
'Everybody in the industry who's paying attention will be expecting those same payments,' Smith said.
In a statement, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump 'cares deeply about strengthening America's agriculture industry' and that the U.S. Department of Agriculture 'is operating a range of programs to serve our farmers while evaluating new ways to ensure they have the resources they need to feed the world.'
Holtermann, the Kern County grower, said she received aid from the government during Trump's first term and that she believes Trump will 'make it right' this time around, too. She said she's 'cautiously optimistic' that Trump's tariffs will 'put the American economy back up to the powerhouse that we're supposed to be,' even as she's not 'naive' about the short-term impacts.
'At the end of the day,' Holtermann said, 'all I can do is keep farming and do what I'm doing every single day and hope everything pans out.'