Amid soaring prices for coffee at U.S. grocery stores, legislators are planning to introduce a bipartisan bill to exempt coffee from recently imposed U.S. tariffs, which are fees paid by U.S. importers.
The Washington Post was first to report (paywall) that Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) intend to file legislation exempting coffee — including green coffee, roasted coffee and coffee byproducts such as husks — from any tariffs imposed after Jan. 19, 2025.
The move follows recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that coffee prices in August posted the fastest monthly increase since 1997.
While coffee prices on the commodity markets have been historically high for most of the year, analysts attribute the current higher consumer prices to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, including a 50% tariff paid by U.S. importers on goods from Brazil, the leading supplier of coffee to the U.S.
In a post on X today, Bacon wrote, “It doesn’t make sense to put tariffs on something our country does not even grow. All it does is raise the cost of coffee for American consumers.”
On Instagram, Khanna wrote, “I will be introducing bipartisan legislation to repeal tariffs on coffee. Anyone who has a coffee cup always in hand hates this tax!”
The move follows a June letter from the bipartisan Congressional Coffee Caucus urging the U.S. Trade Representative to spare coffee from tariff actions, noting there is no scalable domestic substitute and that tariffs risk compounding supply-chain pressures.
“Though small quantities of predominantly specialty coffee are grown in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, their combined production accounts for less than 1% of U.S. coffee consumption,” the letter stated.
While coffees from nine of the world’s top 10 coffee-producing countries are currently subject to tariffs — including Vietnam (20%), Indonesia (19%), Colombia (10%) and Honduras (10%) — the tariffs on Brazilian goods may prove to be more of a political sticking point. When Trump announced the tariffs, he said they were in response to a political “witch hunt” against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.
Neither Bacon nor Khanna have announced a timeline for the introduction of the coffee exemption bill.
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Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine.
