USDA now projects the U.S. agricultural trade deficit will narrow to $29B in FY2026, down from about $50B a year ago. Undersecretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Luke Lindberg says the trade team isn’t done yet.
“Our goal is to get back to surplus, but going from $50 billion (forecasted) to $29 billion in one year shows tremendous progress, 43% down over this time last year, and we’re continuing to make good progress on seeing that drop even further,” Lindberg says.
Exports rising
Three areas with notable increases in exports by year-end of 2025 include:
- Dairy exports up 15%
- Ethanol exports up 11%
- Corn exports up 29%
Simply put, the U.S. ag trade balance is export value minus import value. Lindberg says the export side of the equation is where his team can make the most impact.
“We’ve seen great opportunities as our producers can take new advantage of some of these trade deals the president has put in place. So, the stat that I love to say right now is over half the world’s population and over half the world’s GDP have come to some kind of a trade agreement with the president in his first year in office. That’s a lot of mouths to feed and a lot of dollars that can be buying U.S. products.”
In recent decades, the U.S. maintained a positive trade balance up until 2020 when the surpluses were much smaller or became deficits.
How USDA says it will push exports
To build back trade, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ team is sticking to a three-point plan:
- Get better trade agreements.
- Build willing buyer and willing seller relationships.
- Hold trading partners accountable.
“Our team and our friends over at the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office have done a tremendous job opening up market access with our dealmaker-in-chief, President Donald J. Trump. Our team at USDA plays an outsized role in getting our farmers and ranchers out there to sell their products. I refer to it as building buyer-seller relationships. And so we’re aggressively approaching that this year, with getting our farmers and ranchers and our agribusinesses on the ground in these countries where they have market access today that they didn’t have yesterday,” he says.
Trade missions: 2026 schedule and priorities
To continue to build trade relations and boost exports, Lindberg points to the traditional USDA agribusiness trade missions (of which there are six scheduled in 2026), and the rapid response trade missions called TRUMP missions (Trade Reciprocity for U.S. Manufacturers and Producers).
“We really do have a robust, aggressive schedule this year to make sure we’re quickly getting into these markets that the president has unlocked,” he says. “We need market access. We need to be able to compete on a fair and level playing field to export our products around the world.”
Domestic angle: imports, tariffs, and “level playing field”
As for the domestic demand of ag products, and potentially reducing the value of agricultural imports, Lindberg says farmers should also have a level playing field stateside.
“Our farmers and ranchers now have a better playing field, both overseas, where we’re taking down trade barriers, but also here domestically, through the President’s aggressive use of tariffs and the way in which he has restructured the opportunities that exist domestically for our farmers. And we’re seeing that in the trade data, where on a dollar-for-dollar basis, we’re going to be importing a significant amount less this year than we did even last year. And what that does is it means more Americans, more of their dollars are going towards food that is produced, consumed, slaughtered, raised, processed, right here in the United States of America, and I think that’s a win as well.”
