For a moment, the threat of guac-ocalypse loomed over America. Had President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada gone into effect, the prices of avocados and tomatoes would have skyrocketed in the approach to Super Bowl Sunday. Trump may be bluffing about his willingness to start a trade war, but the grace period he negotiated with those nations lasts just 30 days. Yesterday he said that he would announce tariffs on even more countries—he didn’t specify which—in the coming week. Soon, Americans could again be clutching our guacamole.
If the tariffs Trump has threatened do go into effect, they would quickly raise the prices not just of avocados but of strawberries, cucumbers, bell peppers, oranges, countless processed foods, and other grocery staples that are already becoming less affordable for many people. Any pain that tariffs cause American consumers would—in Trump’s view, which he boomed on Truth Social—be only a temporary bump on the road to “THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA.” Implicit in that idea—and the reality of an actual trade war—is the assumption that the U.S. can make up for any lost imports on its own. Trump’s stance on agriculture is the same as his stance on everything else: “America First.”
The notion that the country could produce all of its food domestically is nice—even admirable. An America First food system would promote eating seasonally and locally, supporting more small farmers in the process. But that is not how most people eat now. Eating America First would restrict the variety that shoppers have come to expect; eating fresh blueberries year-round would be impossible. Barring the overhaul of all U.S. agriculture, it would mean a less healthy diet, too. The guac-ocalypse near miss was a reminder of the precarious state of our food system: Much of the food we want is not produced at home.
Trump’s tariffs may amount to nothing but political posturing. During his first term, he threatened Mexico with a 5 percent tariff, then backed off two weeks later. The current grace period could extend indefinitely. But an actual trade war would have a dramatic impact on the food supply. Avocados are a perfect case study. The national obsession is staggering: In 2023, the average person ate more than nine pounds of them—roughly equivalent to 27 average-size fruit. More than 90 percent of the avocados Americans buy come from Mexico; they are the nation’s top import in terms of value, Luis Ribera, an agricultural-economics professor at Texas A&M University, told me. Because they are much more expensive than, say, bananas, the effect of a 25 percent tariff (plus its associated costs) would be more significant: A small Hass avocado worth 50 cents might go to $1.50, Ribera said. Avocado-dependent businesses would feel it, too. A Chipotle representative told me that tariffs would certainly raise prices.
The America First perspective frames tariffs as an opportunity to boost domestic production. Roughly 10 percent of avocados available in America are grown here; the majority come from California, and Florida and Hawaii make up the remainder. Zach Conrad, a food-systems expert at the College of William & Mary, ticked off a multitude of reasons domestic production could not re-create our current avocado bounty. Avocados grow in too few areas of the U.S., and on top of that, they largely produce fruit only from spring to early fall. Trump’s immigration policies threaten the already dwindling farm-labor workforce.
Avocados aside, the U.S. does already produce enough food to feed itself, and then some. About 4,000 calories’ worth of food a day were available for each person in 2010, according to the USDA’s most recent estimate; that year, the average person consumed 2,500 calories a day. But food is more than just calories. The U.S. produces plenty of grains, oils, sweeteners, and meat, but far less fresh produce and legumes; in recent years, the country has become a net importer of food. “The food group that we produce the least of to meet our dietary needs is fruits and vegetables,” Conrad said. In 2022, 69 percent of the fresh vegetables and 51 percent of the fresh fruits imported by the U.S. came from Mexico. Meat, canola oil, and, uh, biscuits and wafers account for most of the U.S. imports from Canada, but 20 percent of this country’s fresh-vegetable imports come from there, too.
Theoretically, America could grow all of its own produce. But that would require a complete remaking of the food system. More land would have to be dedicated to growing fruits, vegetables, and nuts, and less of it to grains and sweeteners. It would also mean addressing labor shortages, increasing the number of farmers, finding suitable land, and building new infrastructure to process and ship each new crop.
Every one of these issues is incredibly complex. Many fruits and vegetables are so delicate that they must be harvested by hand, so machines can’t supplement human labor. A wheat farmer can’t just switch to growing tomatoes; specialty crops—a category that includes any fruit, vegetable, or tree nut—require specialty knowledge as well as specialty equipment, which can cost millions. Solving all of these problems—which would likely be impossible—would take many years, Conrad said.
Cutting off Canada would have subtler but no less extensive effects than abstaining from Mexican produce. Grains, beef, and pork are produced domestically, but sourcing them abroad can be less expensive, Chris Barrett, a professor who specializes in agricultural economics at Cornell University, told me. Demand for beef on the West Coast of the U.S., for instance, can be cheaper to fulfill from the Canadian prairies than from an East Coast packinghouse. Canada’s other big contribution to the American diet is canola oil, which is produced stateside in relatively small amounts. The ongoing campaign against seed oils, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., may claim that Americans would be better off without canola oil, but for now, America runs on processed food. Without cheap canola oil from Canada, many frozen foods and packaged goods will cost more. “That excellent ratatouille you get in a can, even if you think it’s healthy, probably contains a bit of imported oil. It’s going to get priced up, ” Barrett said.
The problems with an America First food system wouldn’t just be about cost. It would lack diversity: There would be no tropical fruits such as mangoes and coconuts, and far fewer specialty varieties, such as Sumo Citrus and Meyer lemons, because domestic growers would have to focus on the basics. Given the current emphasis on meat, grains, and sweeteners, it would encourage a less healthy diet, too. Striving toward the “Make America healthy again” ideal pushed by RFK Jr. would be made more difficult with fewer choices and higher prices. As my colleague Nicholas Florko wrote recently, people buy food on the basis of taste, convenience, and cost. America could supply its entire population with a healthy diet, as Conrad’s research has shown, but not without totally blowing up its agricultural priorities.
The notion of an America First food supply—harvesting homegrown produce, eating seasonally, supporting farmers—does align with the idea of returning to a pastoral era, which has been embraced by RFK Jr.’s supporters, raw-milk drinkers, and farmers’-market devotees across the political spectrum. “It’s a nice way of thinking about food,” Conrad said. But it just doesn’t align with the reality of how Americans currently eat. Every time we go to the grocery store, we choose from a marvelous variety of foods from around the world. A McDonald’s hamburger with fries, that most American of meals, is made with sesame seeds from Mexico and canola oil from Canada. That eating vatfuls of guacamole every year in the middle of February is a pillar of American culture is a testament to our interdependence with our neighbors.