Amid Tariff Shakeups, Colombia Warns of Potential Fraud; Brazil Calls Claim Baseless

by

Editorial Policy

Published on

✉️ This story was featured in this week’s Coffee News Club
👋 Get the Coffee News Club newsletter in your inbox weekly—sign up.

In the wake of Trump’s 50% tariff on imports from Brazil, coffee shipments to the U.S. have fallen by almost half. To compensate for that decline, Brazilian coffee exporters have explored alternative exporting partners.

According to Cecafé, Brazil’s exporters’ association, shipments to Mexico and Colombia increased by 90% and 578%, respectively, in August compared to the same month a year earlier.

Now the head of Colombia’s coffee growers’ federation (known as the FNC) has called for stricter import controls on coffee entering the country from Brazil, according to reporting from Oscar Media and Dayanne Sousa for Bloomberg.

At the beginning of September, NPR reported that U.S. buyers were increasingly looking towards Colombia to replace Brazilian beans in their blends. Colombia’s tariff rate to the U.S. is 10%, significantly lower than Brazil’s, although its coffees generally sell for higher prices. 

Germán Bahamón, FNC’s CEO, voiced worries that this might lead “unscrupulous exporters” in Colombia to take advantage of the differential. These exporters might try to repackage or blend the cheaper Brazilian coffee into bags labeled “100% Colombian Coffee” before export, he said.

Bahamón said the government should tighten the rules to “prevent any attempt at coffee triangulation that misrepresents the origin.”

Cecafé pushed back on the idea that its coffee was being blended and then shipped on to the U.S. from Colombia. “Our coffees are being purchased to meet domestic consumption, given the increase in Colombian coffee exports to the US,” Cecafé president Marcio Ferreira said.

Data from the International Coffee Association shows that shipments from Colombia to the U.S. have risen 16% as of July, compared to the same period last year. Analysts theorize that this increase is due to U.S. buyers seeking to diversify their sourcing.

Read more on Colombia’s coffee worries from Bloomberg here.

Photo by Dimitry B on Unsplash

Share This Article
Avatar photo

Fionn Pooler

Fionn Pooler is a coffee roaster and freelance writer currently based in the Scottish Highlands who has worked in the specialty coffee industry for over a decade. Since 2016 he has written the Pourover, a newsletter and blog that uses interviews and critical analysis to explore coffee’s place in the wider, changing world (and also yell at corporations).

Join 7,000+ coffee pros and get top stories, deals, and other industry goodies in your inbox each week.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.


Other Articles You May Like

Verve Coffee Will Pay $180k After Baristas Flag Healthcare Benefit Violations

The settlement will go to current and former staff at one of the California-based company’s San Francisco locations.
by Fionn Pooler | October 21, 2025

Coffee News Club: Week of October 20th

There can be only one death-themed coffee brand. Plus, how post-harvest processing can improve underripe coffee, and Blue Bottle Coffee achieves carbon neutrality—but does that mean anything? 
by Fionn Pooler | October 20, 2025

Fermentation Might Hold the Key to Elevating Underripe Coffee Beans

What if there was a way to process underripe cherries so they taste as good—if not better than—ripe ones? Fermentation might hold the answer.
by Fionn Pooler | October 20, 2025

New Study Confirms: Higher Elevation Means Better Coffee

New research analyzed four coffees grown at different elevations to see if altitude impacts flavor and quality.
by Fionn Pooler | October 14, 2025