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Coffee traders are scrambling to import as much coffee as they can to the United States by August 1st. The moves are in response to a threat made by United States President Donald Trump, who announced earlier this month that he would impose a 50% tariff on all imports from Brazil.
As Marcelo Teixeira and Maytaal Angel report for Reuters, traders are diverting cargo ships en route to other countries in order to bring coffee from Brazil to the U.S. Some are also moving Brazilian coffee stateside from warehouses in Mexico and Canada.
Commodity coffee prices spiked in the aftermath of Trump’s threat, and some U.S.-based importers have already amended their wholesale prices for shipments arriving in August. Assuming the tariffs go into effect, the impact could be devastating. “It is a form of taxation which is hurting American businesses. No one else,” said Steve Walter Thomas of the importing company Lucatelli Coffee. “This new 50% tariff is an existential threat to importers like me.”
Tariffs are a tax paid by the importer on imports, and the costs are typically passed on to the consumer. News reports predict that consumers will see even higher retail prices on dozens of goods in the near future, including orange juice and, of course, coffee. “Americans are going to feel the impact of the tariffs in their morning brew,” food economist David Ortega told USA Today, noting that Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee.
Whether these tariffs will come to pass is another matter entirely. Trump has repeatedly delayed and reversed tariff decisions in the past, leading to the creation of a new acronym, TACO: Trump always chickens out.
Read more about the tariff fallout from Reuters here.
