US president Donald Trump’s announcement of his so-called “liberation day” tariffs in April 2025 put a chill across global markets.

The uncertainty caused by the size and scope of the measures announced, coupled with the months of negotiations which followed them, meant that any observer would be forgiven for thinking that trade with the US would have been severely disrupted as a result.

The Irish dairy sector is very exposed to Trump’s measures, as the US is a key customer for the Kerrygold brand.

Latest export data for Bord Bia, covering the period between April 2025 and the end of March 2026, might therefore come as a surprise as it shows record dairy sales, both by value and volume, over that 12-month period (see Figure 1).

Digging a little further into the numbers, we can see that butter was the big driver of the performance over the year since liberation day.

Exports were up by one third on volume and up by a similar amount on value. Butter now accounts for more than two-thirds of Irish dairy exports to the US by value.

Biggest change

Cheese, accounting for 12% of dairy exports to the US, managed to maintain both the value and volume levels seen in the 12 months before Trump’s tariff changes.

In fact, the biggest change in dairy exports to the US was seen in infant food, which saw a drop of more than half to €50.6m.

However, that move had little to do with any trade measures and more to do with the resolution of bottlenecks and problems in US domestic production, which had substantially increased import demand in previous years (see Figure 2).

It might be tempting to think, from looking at the data, that Trump’s tariff measures were little more than hot air and that trade continued as normal.

However, in recent weeks, we have seen that the disruptions have had real effects in the market place.

Lakeland’s butter partner in the US - Vital Farms - announced that it was pulling out of the butter market, citing, among other things, the “complexity of an international supply chain” and the “very uncertain global trade backdrop” as reasons for the decision.

The robustness of the dairy performance under these conditions seems to be down to how Irish dairy is perceived among US consumers.

The work done by Ornua on building and maintaining the Kerrygold brand over decades meant that it has been able to successfully trade through the challenges faced over the last 12 months - and for that, it should be congratulated.