Coffee prices are rising, despite Trump’s cancelled tariff on Colombia
CNN
Coffee prices hit a new high Monday, the day after President Donald Trump threatened – and then reversed course on – a 25% tariff on Colombia, during a spat about deportation flights from the US.
Coffee prices hit a new high Monday, the day after President Donald Trump threatened – and then reversed course on – a 25% tariff on Colombia during a spat about deportation flights from the US. And the price is still rising. Even though the tariff never went into effect, the mere threat sent nerves racing throughout the coffee market. Colombia is the third largest coffee-producing country in the world, behind Brazil and Vietnam. Futures contracts for Arabica coffee produced in Latin America and traded on the Intercontinental Exchange jumped from a closing level of $3.48 a pound on Friday to $3.49 a pound on Monday, a 0.5% increase. By mid-day Tuesday coffee futures moved even higher, to $3.53 a pound, a 1.7% increase from Friday. “When President Trump even makes threats about tariffs, the minute you introduce uncertainty into a global trade system, and that’s what global trade is, things are going to get a little crazy,” said Dan Gardner, the president of Trade Facilitators, a supply chain, trade, and logistics company. But President Trump didn’t send the price of coffee soaring by himself. Arabica coffee prices surged by 13% in December, a 60% year-over-year increase, according to the World Bank.
At her first White House briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made an unusual claim about inflation that has stung American shoppers for years: Leavitt said egg prices have continued to surge because “the Biden administration and the department of agriculture directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens, which has led to a lack of chicken supply in this country, therefore lack of egg supply, which is leading to the shortage.”