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The US has announced framework trade deals with Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador as the Trump administration pushes to reduce food prices for American consumers.

A senior administration official said on Thursday that while the reciprocal tariffs of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent would remain on most goods imported from the four countries, they would be removed on selected goods.

“You will see, for Ecuador for example, bananas is something they want to ship to us, so we expect tariffs will come off bananas,” a senior administration official said. They also suggested that levies could be reduced on other goods, such as coffee.

“We certainly would expect that retailers and wholesalers in America . . . would pass along any positive effects to the American consumer,” the official added. “Taking off a tariff doesn’t change the weather in Ecuador, but it could have a price effect.”

The announcement comes as the Trump administration is under growing pressure to tackle a cost of living crisis that is affecting millions of Americans.

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said earlier this week that US inflation, which is at 3 per cent, was moving in the right direction but acknowledged that grocery prices had risen during President Donald Trump’s second term.

“The affordability gap that was created by [former president Joe] Biden’s runaway inflation is gradually being whittled away by the higher growth that we have,” he told reporters on Thursday. “In the end, the most important message is going to be what people see in their pockets, which is higher incomes and a higher ability to spend.”

In a statement with Buenos Aires released by the White House on Thursday, Washington said it would remove reciprocal tariffs on imports of “unavailable natural resources” and some ingredients for pharmaceutical goods.

Argentina in turn agreed to open its market to US cattle, the two sides said, as well as easing restrictions on some American dairy products and lowering tariffs on a range of other goods including some medicines, chemicals, machinery, medical devices and motor vehicles.

Washington said in separate statements that it would remove tariffs on goods from Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala that “cannot be grown, mined, or naturally produced in the United States in sufficient quantities”.

Tariffs on textiles and apparel products from El Salvador and Guatemala would also be lowered, according to the statement.

A senior administration official said that fuller reciprocal trade agreements for all four countries would be signed and publicised within the next two weeks. 

The deal with Argentina comes as the US has been supporting Javier Milei, the country’s libertarian president and Trump’s closest ideological ally in Latin America, with a financial lifeline.

The US Treasury has approved a $20bn credit line for Argentina’s cash-strapped central bank and intervened to prop up the peso ahead of an important midterm election for Milei last month.

Milei has embarked on a drive to slash import barriers in Argentina’s notoriously protectionist economy since taking office in 2023. The White House said its tariff reductions were “in recognition of Argentina’s ambitious reform agenda”.

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Alejandro Cacace, Argentina’s deregulation secretary who was involved in the talks, said Washington’s tariff reductions on pharmaceutical components were aimed at “friendshoring” supplies used in medicine production as the US seeks to reduce dependence on Chinese imports.

Argentina has also committed to improving spotty intellectual property protections, a long-standing complaint of US pharmaceutical exporters.

Boosting foreign investment is a top priority for Milei as he struggles to revive his country’s chronically weak economy. He said the deal was “tremendous news”, adding “as you can see we are strongly committed to ‘Making Argentina Great Again”.