The Lobby Mobilizes: America's Coffee Industry Goes Back to Washington to Fight for Its Beans
Every morning, roughly 200 million Americans pour themselves a cup of coffee. For most of them, the geopolitics behind that ritual are invisible — the long chain of contracts, shipping lanes, import terminals, and tariff schedules that determines whether a bag of beans costs $12 or $22 at the grocery store. Right now, that chain is under serious stress again, and the people responsible for keeping it intact are making noise in Washington.
The National Coffee Association asked the Trump administration on July 8 to keep Brazilian green coffee exempt from tariffs during a session of public consultation that is reviewing tariffs on Brazilian imports. The stakes are enormous. Brazil is the world's largest producer and exporter of coffee, and supplies a third of U.S. needs. Lose that supply line — or make it prohibitively expensive — and the morning routines of tens of millions of Americans get measurably worse and more costly.
A New Investigation Reopens Old Wounds
The occasion for the NCA's latest push is a federal government review with roots in trade policy far removed from coffee itself. The U.S. government is holding consultations this week related to the Section 301 investigation on Brazilian trade practices. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 grants the executive branch sweeping authority to impose tariffs on countries engaged in practices deemed unfair or harmful to American commercial interests. The current investigation covers an ambitious list of grievances. In June, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative proposed a 25 percent tariff on a variety of Brazilian imports after looking into digital trade rules, intellectual property, ethanol access, and deforestation.
Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said at the time that the investigation covered "longstanding and pervasive U.S. concerns." For the coffee industry, however, the framing of the dispute hardly matters — what matters is whether that 25 percent rate lands on Brazilian beans. The Trump administration could impose a 25 percent tariff on imports of several Brazilian products, alleging the country's practices were unfair on a range of issues from digital trade to illegal deforestation.
The USTR said in June that products exempted from the proposed tariffs would include crude oil and petroleum products, pharmaceutical compounds, organic chemicals, and fertilizers. Other exempted products include beef, coffee, rare earths, certain other metals and ores, and aircraft parts. So coffee is currently named in the USTR's preliminary exemption list — but that status is not guaranteed, and the NCA is taking no chances. The association showed up to make its case directly, knowing from bitter experience what happens when Brazilian coffee gets caught in the tariff machinery.
The Year That Broke the Supply Chain
To understand why American coffee industry leaders are treating this consultation with such urgency, it helps to walk through what happened in the twelve months before this week's hearings. The story is a case study in how quickly a political spat between two heads of state can cascade into grocery store sticker shock across the United States.
In July 2025, Trump told Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva the United States would slap a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods starting August 1. He pointed to Brazil's prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, which he called a "witch hunt." The move was as political as it was economic. After imposing a baseline "reciprocal tariff" of 10 percent on goods worldwide, Trump added a 40 percent tariff in July, citing retaliation for the Brazilian government's prosecution of former president and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro, who had been sentenced to prison for plotting a coup.
The move brought tariffs on Brazilian coffee to 50 percent, essentially halting purchases of Brazilian coffee among U.S. buyers. The effects on the market were immediate and severe. Prices for roasted coffee on U.S. grocery shelves skyrocketed by over 20 percent in August due to tariffs on coffee-growing countries — in particular on Brazil. For a product that had essentially been tariff-free for decades, the jolt was extraordinary.
Small roasters, in particular, had nowhere to hide. Jeff Yerxa, co-owner of Lost Sock Roasters in Washington, D.C., described the bind his business faced — saying profit margins are already thin and that "it's the uncertainty that's probably the worst." He said, "At the end of the day, the consumer is the one that's going to bear the brunt of it. I don't want to raise prices, but we're seeing increased costs of 30% on coffee, potentially." The tariff wasn't an abstraction for operators like Yerxa — it was a direct line item on every import receipt, passed up the chain from importer to roaster to retail shelf.
The Green Coffee Carve-Out
Under sustained pressure from the industry, Washington eventually moved. The country was hit by a 50 percent tariff last year that caused havoc in the U.S. coffee industry, until Washington decided to include green coffee in a list of exemptions. That first carve-out provided relief to the biggest slice of the trade — raw, unroasted green coffee beans that American roasters buy by the containerload. But it left another segment stranded.
That move triggered severe disruption across roasting, distribution, and retail channels until green coffee was carved out with an exemption. Instant coffee, however, remained trapped under the 50 percent duty, squeezing margins for manufacturers who rely on the soluble product for everything from instant packets to cold brew concentrates. For an industry that had watched ready-to-drink coffee evolve from a convenience-store afterthought into a booming mainstream category, the instant coffee penalty stung particularly hard.
The Supreme Court Intervenes
The next major development came not from the executive branch but from the judiciary. Instant coffee continued to be subject to 50 percent tariffs until the recent Supreme Court ruling, which declared the blanket customs duties imposed by the President under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to be unlawful. The logjam only broke when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the bulk of those earlier tariff actions, resetting the rate to a uniform 10 percent global tariff. That 10 percent baseline is where things currently stand for instant coffee — a significant improvement over 50 percent, but still a tax on a product that was previously imported duty-free.
By November 2025, the executive branch also moved on green coffee from Brazil specifically. President Trump signed an executive order removing the remaining 40 percent tariff on Brazilian coffee, effectively restoring coffee-tariff policy to pre-"Liberation Day" norms. Brazilian exporters reacted with undisguised relief. Cecafé, Brazil's coffee exporters council, called the original tariff hike "a complete loss of competitiveness." "The tariff reversal comes after months of intense work representing the interests of Brazilian coffee. It is a historic victory for the entire coffee agribusiness production chain," the council said in a statement.
What the NCA Is Asking For Now — and Why It Matters
Given that hard-won exemption, the NCA's July 8 appearance before the Section 301 consultation panel was less a push for something new than a defense of something already gained. The association's message: whatever framework emerges from this investigation, do not undo the exemptions that stabilized the market.
The NCA also asked the administration to include instant coffee in the list of tariff-free Brazilian products, saying the product is key for the competitiveness of the U.S. coffee industry considering new product offerings such as the ready-to-drink coffee cans. That request reflects a structural reality in how Americans are now consuming coffee. The NCA's push to explicitly safeguard instant coffee reflects a structural shift in American consumption habits. Ready-to-drink coffee has evolved from a niche offering into a multi-billion-dollar supermarket staple, and soluble coffee is a critical ingredient in those supply chains.
NCA President William Murray put the economic weight of the argument plainly. "Ensuring tariff-free imports of these coffee tariff codes will have significant benefits for the U.S. economy and for the nearly 200 million American adults who drink coffee each day," Murray said. He also highlighted what the previous round of tariffs had already done to the market. Murray said the tariffs have contributed to "highly visible price inflation on popular products," putting pressure on U.S. companies manufacturing ready-to-drink, liquid coffee bases, syrups, and food service mixtures.
The NCA said in a statement that coffee drives "more than $343 billion in U.S. economic value" and supports 2.2 million jobs, accounting for 8 percent of the value of the U.S. food service sector. Those numbers help explain why the trade association wields genuine political leverage. This is not a niche constituency. Coffee touches nearly every corner of American consumer life, from convenience store drip to $7 single-origin cortados, from gas station cans to subscription-roaster shipments arriving at the front door twice a month.
The Political Backdrop: Brazil-U.S. Relations Under Strain
The Section 301 investigation doesn't exist in a vacuum. U.S.-Brazil trade relations have been turbulent throughout the current administration, and the coffee dispute is inseparable from a larger diplomatic friction. The Trump administration also initiated a Section 301 investigation into Brazil's trade practices in July. The ongoing probe is assessing digital trade, anti-corruption enforcement, and ethanol market access. The political dimension — centered on the prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — has repeatedly intruded on what might otherwise be straightforward trade negotiations.
In a prior executive order, Trump declared a national emergency, claiming Brazil's policies threatened U.S. national security, foreign policy, and economic interests. Trump also decried the prosecution of former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro and fines on U.S. companies ordered by the country's Supreme Court. That political overlay makes the coffee industry's situation particularly precarious — the fate of Brazilian beans in the American market has become partially contingent on the judicial treatment of a foreign politician.
Trump and Lula sat down at the White House in May to discuss bilateral trade and tariffs. Lula suggested a standing working group and left the door open to concessions on Washington's concerns. The diplomatic channel remains open, but active. Last year, the United States ran a $14.4 billion goods surplus with Brazil on nearly $94.3 billion in total trade. That surplus is a piece of leverage Washington holds, but it also underscores how deeply integrated the two economies are — and how much collateral damage aggressive tariffs can inflict on American industries that depend on Brazilian raw materials.
In July 2025, Trump told Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva the United States would slap a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods starting August 1. When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down reciprocal tariffs in February, the Trump administration responded by setting a new global tariff of 10 percent under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The administration's willingness to reach for new statutory authority after court defeats signals that the tariff environment will remain legally and commercially unpredictable for the foreseeable future.
Instant Coffee and the Ready-to-Drink Revolution
One of the more revealing threads running through the NCA's July testimony is the explicit focus on instant coffee — a product category that most serious coffee drinkers have historically dismissed as inferior, but which has quietly become a linchpin of the industry's fastest-growing segment. The ready-to-drink coffee category — those sleek cans of cold brew, nitro coffee, and canned lattes filling expanding cooler sections at every gas station, grocery store, and gym — depends heavily on soluble coffee concentrates and instant coffee as functional ingredients.
Without an exemption, manufacturers would face a sharp cost increase that executives say would inevitably be passed on to consumers already weary from persistent inflationary pressures. The math is unforgiving at scale. A manufacturer blending hundreds of thousands of cans per month cannot simply absorb a new 25 percent duty on a key input — the cost hits the retail price, and in a category where consumers are already sensitive to sticker shock, that matters.
The NCA's decision to make instant coffee a centerpiece of its consultation testimony signals that the association is thinking about where American coffee consumption is heading, not just where it has been. The days when "instant coffee" meant a jar of stale granules for the break room are long past. The category now encompasses premium freeze-dried single-origins, functional coffee blends with adaptogens, and the soluble concentrates used in high-end ready-to-drink formulations. Leaving it exposed to a 25 percent duty while green bean imports enjoy protection would create a structural distortion in the supply chain that could take years to correct.
Coffee and Climate: The Tariff Problem Compound by Nature
The tariff fight is playing out against a backdrop of supply stress that has nothing to do with Washington. Levies on the commodity have put additional pressure on already surging prices, driven by dwindling harvests amid climate change. Brazil's coffee-producing regions have faced a combination of drought and extreme heat in recent growing seasons, tightening global supply independently of any trade policy.
The past several years have been volatile for the coffee industry, contributing to a major increase in market prices for coffee even in the last year. The price volatility can be attributed, in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic and back-to-back low-yield coffee harvests in Brazil. The world's top coffee brands are already forecasting a prolonged period of elevated prices. Giuseppe Lavazza, chairman of the Lavazza Group, has stated that retail coffee prices will not go down for at least a couple of years, due to market conditions, climatic challenges, and geopolitical uncertainties. Layering import tariffs on top of weather-driven supply shortages creates a compounding effect that hits both sides of the Atlantic — Brazilian farmers see disrupted export relationships while American consumers pay more at every price point.
Tariff threats extend beyond imports from Brazil: The Trump administration has announced a number of tariffs on imports from other coffee-producing countries, like Vietnam, which produces 17 percent of the world's coffee, Colombia, which produces 8 percent, and Ethiopia and Indonesia, which produce 6 percent each. That means American roasters cannot simply pivot to alternative origins without facing a similarly taxed landscape. The diversification strategy that importers might normally deploy in response to Brazilian supply disruptions — buying more Colombian Arabica, more Vietnamese Robusta — runs into the same tariff walls at every turn.
What Happens If the Exemption Disappears
Industry observers point to last summer's 50 percent tariff period as the clearest preview of what a return to heavy duties would look like. The industry is still recovering from last year's 50 percent tariff shock, which was partially defused by a green coffee exemption and a Supreme Court ruling. That recovery is incomplete, which means the sector's resilience to a new tariff hit is considerably diminished.
The consultation process is expected to gather testimony from importers, roasters, and trade groups through the end of the week before the administration makes a final determination on the scope of the tariffs. While the White House has framed the Section 301 action as a tool to combat unfair trade and environmental abuses, the coffee industry's message is blunt: penalizing Brazilian beans punishes American businesses and households far more than it pressures Brasília.
The downstream economics are straightforward and grim. If wholesale coffee costs that U.S. cafes, restaurants, or supermarkets pay rise by 50 percent, this could "translate into an increase of 25 cents a cup within three months," said Ryan Cummings, the chief of staff for the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. For a morning ritual that tens of millions of Americans perform daily, a quarter per cup adds up fast — and it falls hardest on lower-income consumers who are already stretching their grocery budgets.
The Broader Trade Picture: Section 301 and the New Normal
The Section 301 investigation into Brazil is itself a sign of how normalized aggressive trade scrutiny has become under the current administration. The mechanism, rarely deployed historically, has become a routine tool for applying pressure across a range of diplomatic and commercial disputes. The current public hearings will help determine whether the administration moves forward with the new levy on the world's largest coffee producer.
For the coffee industry, the lesson of the past year has been that no exemption is permanent until it is explicitly codified and defended. Green coffee won an exemption once and then nearly lost it before winning it again. In a letter seen by Reuters, the United States' National Coffee Association asked the Trump administration to exempt coffee, warning that additional duties on Canada and Mexico could increase U.S. prices by as much as 50 percent. The NCA has been in near-constant lobbying mode since early 2025, making it one of the more active trade associations in Washington during the current tariff cycle.
The bipartisan United States Congressional Coffee Caucus issued a letter to the U.S. trade agency urging that coffee be exempted from current and future tariffs. The fact that the issue has generated bipartisan congressional attention speaks to how broadly it cuts across the American political landscape. Coffee is not a partisan beverage, and its cost is felt by voters in red states and blue ones in equal measure.
An Industry That Cannot Grow Its Own
The structural vulnerability underlying every tariff fight over coffee is one that no policy change can easily fix: the United States simply does not — and effectively cannot — produce coffee at the scale its population demands. The U.S., aside from small coffee farms in Hawaii and California, doesn't produce coffee at the scale that Americans consume it. Unlike steel, semiconductors, or even certain agricultural commodities, there is no domestic production base to protect by taxing imports. Every tariff on foreign coffee is, by definition, a tax on American consumers and businesses, with no offsetting benefit to a domestic producer class.
That reality makes the NCA's argument to the Trump administration simultaneously simple and powerful: there is no American coffee farmer who gains when Brazilian green beans are taxed at 25 percent. The only American who benefits from a coffee tariff is the Treasury — and the cost is borne by roasters, retailers, and the two hundred million people who start their morning with a cup. The political logic that drives tariffs on steel (protect domestic steelworkers) simply does not translate to a product that the continental United States cannot grow at meaningful scale.
What to Watch Next
The Section 301 consultation process is expected to conclude shortly, after which the administration will make its final determination. Coffee remains on the USTR's preliminary exemption list, but the NCA's willingness to show up and argue the case in person suggests the industry is not taking that status for granted. The additional request to extend tariff-free status to instant coffee is the new frontier — a recognition that the product's importance to the American market has outgrown its old reputation.
Both sides of the diplomatic equation are still in play. Trump and Lula sat down at the White House in May to discuss bilateral trade and tariffs. Afterward, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that the meeting "went very well" and that staff from both sides would keep working through "certain key elements," with more meetings lined up. That diplomatic engagement provides some reason for optimism that the broader U.S.-Brazil trade relationship can be stabilized — but the coffee industry has learned not to assume that meetings at the White House translate directly into protected supply chains.
For anyone who grinds beans every morning, follows the specialty roasting scene, or simply pays attention to what it costs to fuel up on caffeine, the outcome of these Washington consultations will show up eventually — on the retail shelf, on the café menu, or in the price of a case of cold brew cans. The National Coffee Association is making its case loudly, with numbers to back it up. Whether the administration is listening closely enough will determine whether the next round of Brazilian tariff chaos is avoided or simply deferred.
