Bananas and beef: White House announces Latin America trade deals

The White House on Thursday announced trade agreements with Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador and El Salvador, the latest deals since US President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs around the world.

Bananas and coffee are among the groceries whose prices could fall for stretched US consumers, it said, amid growing discontent about the cost of living under Trump's second presidency.

The four countries, all in America's backyard in South and Central America, agreed to open their markets to US products while Washington grants tariff relief on some items in return, the White House said.

"We believe that these agreements are going to help achieve balanced trade, achieve reciprocity, and reduce the deficits in the long run," a senior US administration official told reporters.

"Our expectation is that there'll be some positive effects for prices, for things like coffee, cocoa, bananas."

The deals are also a reward for leaders that are friendly towards the Trump administration. 

They include beef-producing Argentina, whose libertarian president Javier Milei visited the White House last month, and El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, the self-styled "world's coolest dictator."

"Friends," Bukele said in a post on social media, along with a copy of a joint statement with the United States.

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo – whose country signed a deal with the Trump administration earlier this year to take back migrants – hailed his country's "strong relationship" with Washington.

"After months of intensive work and frank dialogue with the United States government, we became one of the first countries in the world to reach an agreement to reduce and eliminate tariffs," he said in a statement.

– TIMES/AFP