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Expensive Coffee? Thank Trump!
Coffee and Tariffs
On April 3rd, the current administration applied a blanket 10% tariff to almost all countries (we see you Russia). This includes Honduras and Guatemala, where the non-profit I work with called Farmer to Farmer buys coffee. While the Trump administration says that the countries doing the exporting will pay the tariff, in reality it is the importers who will have to pay additional fees. That is us, and you!
Farmer to Farmer imports about $90,000 of coffee each year, spread out between Guatemala and Honduras. The 10% tariff will add to almost $9,000 of additional costs paid by us and our customers to the federal government.
The first kicker is that the Trump administration is proposing that the income from tariffs could make possible a new round of tax cuts. Their proposals for new tax cuts skew the majority of the cuts to the wealthy, and working class people might actually see a tax increase. So that additional $9,000 paid by all of us will go right to the billionaire class. This is the secret of tariffs — it is a regressive form of taxation.
The second kicker is that this administration has already shown that they are using the tariffs to force foreign governments to make “deals” in order to bring down the tariffs. These deals could range from opening access to their minerals or oil…
