• Canada threatened retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., specifically targeting Florida orange juice.
• A trade war between the United States and its closest neighbors is at a chilly dente" for 30 days.
• Economists are critical of tariffs. One analysis found that during a trade war, farmers suffer the greatest losses in real wages.
• Doug Feek, a citrus grower, explains why the proposed tariffs across North America would actually benefit his citrus-packing business.

Florida citrus grower Doug Feek took a knife and slashed cleanly through a Valencia orange, then squeezed it in the palm of his hand.

“You can’t get that juice or aroma anywhere else in the world,” Feek said, surrounded by his 1,300-acre orange grove, the tree canopies polka-dotted by pale-orange and bright-yellow fruit.

While economists heaved a collective sigh of relief last week at President Donald Trump's delay of proposed tariffs — 25% on imports from both Mexico and Canada — some Florida citrus farmers said they actually would have benefited from the tariffs.

“To be honest, we’re affected more by imports from Mexico than we are by exports to Canada," Feek said on the eve of the anticipated trade war, before the one-month detente was reached. "We’re selling our fruit all over the U.S. We’re hoping to see less Mexican fruit in the market. That might drive our demand up.”

Feek, 64, has been in the citrus business for nearly his entire life. In addition to his citrus fields, he has managed a packing house since 2008 — fittingly off of Orange Avenue. His citrus-packing business, Feek Family Citrus, ships an average of 800,000 oranges a year and has averaged $28 million in sales annually for the past five years, he said.

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“It was not so much a disappointment,” Feek said after Trump agreed to delay both tariffs for a month. “But as a grower, I would have benefited.”

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Selling Florida's official state fruit

To prevent fruit from dehydrating, Feek's packing house is kept at a sultry 95% humidity. Oranges, grapefruits and tangerines are unloaded by the crateful to tumble down the conveyor belt. The whirl of machinery sprays, washes, dries and waxes the fruit as it passes by. Fruit not outwardly aesthetically pleasing — misshapen or greenish — is removed by hand and sold elsewhere to become juice.

Feek Family Citrus used to sell those oranges to Tropicana — until Tropicana's St. Lucie County warehouse suspended its juicing operations in 2022 because of the region's declining crop yields. Now, the family business sells to Natalie Orchid Island Juice Co. among others.

The oranges that pass inspection are stored in a massive industrial cooler typically kept at 40 degrees. Feek Family Citrus sells fresh oranges to grocery stores, wholesalers and fruit stands. Only a small amount of the inventory is exported internationally, Feek said.

Would tariffs squeeze growers?

Had the trade war proceeded, Canada was set to retaliate with its own tariffs, including on Florida orange juice. About 98% of all oranges in the Indian River District — a narrow strip of land stretching 200 miles between Daytona Beach and West Palm Beach — are processed to make orange juice, according to the Indian River Citrus League.

Tariffs levied between the U.S. and Mexico "would not bother us in the citrus industry. It might even be a help,” said Dan Richey, an Indian River citrus farmer and U.S. Trade Representative on the Agricultural Trade Advisory Committee.

Mexico undercuts the domestic market for oranges by "bringing in an inferior product," Richey said, and also by paying less for labor. Still, domestic orange juice companies are increasingly relying on Mexican oranges to shore up a shrinking domestic supply, Richey said, largely because of the citrus greening epidemic.

Richey was pessimistic when considering the proposed tariffs between the U.S. and Canada, which he acknowledged would have more of a negative impact.

In 2022, the U.S. exported 25.8 million gallons of orange juice to Canada, valued at $124.2 million, according to the Florida Department of Citrus, with Florida accounting for around 60% of total U.S. orange juice value and volume.

Who pays for tariffs, really?

When analyzing the most recent example, the 2018 U.S.-China trade war, economists identified a "complete tariff pass-through." That means costs of tariffs were passed directly to consumers as increased prices. That totaled $51 billion for all imports during 2018, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit research organization.

The analysis found that all nations involved in a trade war experience a reduction in real wages, with farmers suffering the greatest losses on average. Farmers basically are hit twice — first from the tariffs that add costs to inputs and then again because of retaliatory tariffs that make domestic produce less competitive in export markets.

In general, tariffs add a costly hurdle to international free trade that makes foreign imports more expensive. Because the added costs fall on consumers — with the greatest burden felt by low-income individuals — tariffs are considered by economists to be a regressive tax.

Even though a trade war with Canada and Mexico has been averted — for now — there may already have been damage done, with U.S. companies preemptively pausing hiring and investment.

"We are hearing from our customers that Canadian consumers are avoiding products from the U.S.," Richey said. "Just the threat of these tariffs had an emotional impact on the consumer."

Jack Randall is TCPalm’s economy and real estate reporter. You can reach him at [email protected] or 904-466-4755.