COFFEE BEANS & BEINGS / TARIFFS AND COFFEE — IS THERE A PROBLEM?

 

Where is our modern day Samuel Adams to shout :...no taxation without representation?"  Did we the people mandate tariffs on our cups of coffee?  Hell, no.  Fuck those who did!

What's in the cup next to your computer keys?  Tea?  Unlikely.  Instead our daily ritual is under siege.  And are you going to let Washington rip the coffee mug from your hand?  Enough.  Stand up to the Orangutan! 

Meamwhile, at dawn's early light, the grinder hums, the kettle hisses, and the dark liquid fills the cup. But behind that ordinary comfort is a policy move in Washington that threatens to turn coffee—the most democratic of beverages—into a luxury. 

This year, new tariffs dropped like a hammer on imports from key trading partners. Rates run from 10 to 50 percent. Unlike steel or textiles, coffee has no domestic fallback. The United States does not grow enough beans to matter. Every sip depends on international supply chains, and every tariff mark-up lands directly in the consumer’s cup. 

The result has been swift and sharp: coffee prices up more than 20 percent in a single year, according to the Consumer Price Index. In cafés, the chalkboard menus creep higher by the week. Roasters face impossible margins. At grocery stores, shoppers grimace, downgrade brands, or quietly walk away from the aisle. 

The anxiety is not about a latte—it’s about whether a morning habit, shared by two-thirds of American adults, is being priced out of reach. A bipartisan fix has been floated. Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska and Congressman Ro Khanna of California have introduced a bill to exempt coffee and its derivatives—roasted beans, decaf, even husks—from the tariff regime. 

But the odds are long. Passage requires a divided House, a filibuster-proof Senate, and a willing president. Washington rarely aligns on consumer urgency, even when the evidence scalds. That is the ominous truth. Tariffs were meant to protect American industry. In the case of coffee, there is no industry to protect. There is only the consumer. And if the exemption fails, the most democratic drink in America may become the first casualty of a trade war few asked for.