U.S.President Donald Trump expected Canada to bend and break under the weight of his Make America Great Again tariffs. After all, the U.S., a global superpower, is our biggest trading partner, and David vs. Goliath scenarios were undeniable. 

But so far, Canada is much stronger than expected. The backlash, distinguished by “elbows up” determination, quickly came to dominate the entire country’s landscape, with food and agriculture front and centre. 

To varying degrees, agriculture and food journalists elsewhere, united across 62 countries as the 6,000-member International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, report the American tariffs are having a rallying effect inside their borders, too.  

But they also say Trump is not their biggest fish to fry. 

Take Mexico, for example. There, journalist Alberto Ruiz who works with a multi-media company in Jalisco, says the farming and food sector worries that tariffs will force U.S.retail giants like Target to raise prices of Mexican produce. Avocados, tomatoes, vegetables, tequila and beer are among the commodities under the microscope. 

But Mexico has long had an elbows-up mentality about the U.S. Mexico has a food culture that stretches back centuries, and it’s pushed hard against U.S. technology that it believes threatens that culture, such as GMO corn and high-fructose sugar products. Tariffs are just one more catalyst for food nationalism in Mexico.

That said, Ruiz reports that some renowned Mexican chefs are now championing seasonal, locally sourced ingredients, collaborating with local farmers to preserve traditional farming practices and biodiversity. “It’s an approach that not only sustains cultural heritage but also enhances the quality of Mexican cuisine,” he says. 

In Brazil, agricultural journalist Daniel Azevedo, whose byline has appeared on the pages of The Grower, says unlike Canada, food sovereignty in Brazil as “a well-settled issue, given the strong development of agriculture over the past four decades.” 

He says Brazil is more concerned about tariffs’ contribution to the increasing cost of food. Despite the country’s growing dominance on the world’s export stage for some commodities, poverty and food insecurity affect more than 27 per cent of Brazil’s 211 million people. Four per cent of its citizens go hungry daily. 

“It’s a sad contradiction,” he says. “Even though we have a surplus of food, more than one-quarter of households experience some degree of concern or shortage of food. They’re hungry and poor. That’s what we’re focused on.”

Similarly, South African agricultural journalist Linda Botha says her country is also self-sufficient in food, so supplanting imports with homegrown food hasn’t taken off. However, even though South Africa counts on the U.S. for just four per cent of its exports, they represent key industries such as wine, citrus, avocados, litchis and macadamia nuts. “They’ll struggle without access…many sectors within agriculture will no longer be feasible,” she says. 

Like Canada, South Africa wants to find new trading markets. The question is where. “There is a lot of talk about diversifying markets,” she says, “but with the EU already saturated, high tariffs in India (30%) and lots of competition in China, there are few places where you can go.”

Finally, in highly industrialized Germany, where homegrown fare is also a centuries-old tradition, agricultural editor Christine Stoecker-Gamigliano says that while tariffs make headlines there, they’re not prompting a local food revolution. Germans are more focused on their new government's handling of the weakening economy, foreign policy difficulties with Russia and the war in Ukraine.

“Food security doesn't play a role here,” she says. “Consumers are more concerned about rising prices; farmers are worried about what rules will apply over the next four years. Trump is important, but rather secondary.”