President Trump, joined by trade representatives and members of the U.S. beef industry, recently signed a trade agreement with the European Union (EU) that will designate a larger duty-free quota of U.S. beef to the European meat market.

After months of negotiations, U.S. and Japan trade officials have reached an agreement that will give U.S. beef unrestricted access to Japan’s competitive meat market. 

Last week, China announced a retaliatory tariff increase on a revised target list of $60 billion worth of U.S. products in response to President Donald Trump’s tariff hike to 25 percent on $200 billion in Chinese goods. 

President Donald Trump announced last week that he would be postponing the next round of duties on Chinese goods scheduled to go into effect March 1, thanks to a round of “productive” trade talks between U.S. and Chinese officials that has been taking place throughout the last month.

President Trump signed the 2018 Farm Bill into law on Dec. 20, 2018, much to the relief of lawmakers and agriculture interest groups alike.

Evolving market dynamics make it easy to underestimate how the impacts and costs of trade issues will continue to grow in 2019. Many agricultural markets have been impacted thus far, and the damage will grow and spread unless resolutions are forthcoming promptly. Trade issues will have accumulating impacts in a variety of ways as more time passes.