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In September, Representatives Ro Khanna (D-California) and Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would exempt coffee from President Trump’s tariffs. Now, members of the Senate are following suit with a bipartisan bill of their own.
Last week, Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) introduced the “No Coffee Tax Act.” The aim, the bill states, is to “prohibit the imposition of additional tariffs on coffee imported from countries to which the United States has extended normal trade relations.”
“This coffee tax doesn’t help American business in any serious way, but it does raise costs at the grocery store for hardworking families across the United States,” Cortez Masto said in a statement. “It’s past time to end Trump’s coffee tax.”
Trump himself addressed the issue of coffee tariffs during a trip to Malaysia last week. “We want to get coffee down a little bit,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. Trump met with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the ASEAN trade summit in Malaysia, and Lula described the conversation as “positive.” Imports from Brazil, including coffee, are currently subject to a 50% tariff..
During the ASEAN summit, the U.S. and Vietnam also announced a framework for a trade agreement that would make certain, as-yet-unnamed products tariff-free. At the moment, goods from Vietnam face a 20% import tax.
As Nick Brown reports for Daily Coffee News, coffee is expected to be among the items exempt from tariffs from Vietnam. “There’s a handful of things like coffee, et cetera, the type of stuff we don’t make in the United States — like, climatologically, we can’t. So it makes sense if people are going to do a deal with us, we’ll give them a good deal there,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said.
Last week, back in the U.S., Sen. Paul also co-sponsored a resolution alongside Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) to end the national emergency Trump declared to impose 50% tariffs on Brazil. The vote passed 52-48, with five Republicans voting with Democrats. However, as Ashley Murray reported for Florida Phoenix, “the resolution is not likely to see a vote in the Republican-controlled U.S. House, meaning it is not likely to become law.”
Read the full story on the coffee tariff legislation limbo here.
Photo by Elijah Mears on Unsplash
