Apparently one thing can bridge America’s current political divide. Coffee.
Coffee prices in the United States surged 3.6 percent in August, the biggest monthly jump since 2011. That’s almost 21 percent higher than a year ago.
That’s unacceptable to a bipartisan group of House members, who have introduced the No Coffee Tax Act.
While the Trump administration’s trade policies haven’t hiked consumer prices as much as many economists projected, some items, including coffee, are causing sticker shock at the grocery store.
Reps. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, don’t want to wait for a full, documented trade policy-higher priced coffee connection.
They, along with original cosponsors Democratic Reps. Don Beyer of Virginia and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, say that H.R. 5516 will ease the cost of coffee by prohibiting additional tariffs on coffee imported from countries to which the United States has extended normal trade relations.
The bill would apply not just to roasted and decaffeinated coffee, but also to coffee husks, skins, and other drinks or substitutes containing coffee.
World-leading coffee consumers: U.S. caffeine fiends, of which I am one, drink more coffee than any single country in the world. But we must rely on foreign growers for our morning (and afternoon break and, yes, even post-dinner) fixes.
That’s because Hawai’i is the only state that grows enough coffee to support the large continental U.S. commercial market, and the Aloha State’s renowned Kona beans already come at a premium price.
Some of the current coffee price increase can be blamed on droughts that have hurt crops worldwide. But most commodities experts blame the latest spike on Trump’s recently imposed 50 percent tariff on Brazil, the world’s largest coffee exporter.
“Americans started a revolution over a tax on tea. U.S. coffee prices have increased significantly in the last year, in part due to Trump’s tariffs. If you drink coffee every morning, how can you not be mad about that? Our bipartisan bill is simple: it removes Trump’s tariffs on coffee to bring down costs,” said Khanna.
“Why are we tariffing American citizens on something that we don’t even grow? It doesn’t make sense,” Bacon said in a recent interview discussing the bill.
Bacon also noted that tariff action is within Congress’ purview. “Article One of the Constitution makes clear that Congress has the authority to set tariffs, and this legislation begins to reclaim that authority,” said the Nebraska lawmaker.
Not likely to be enacted: The bill’s sponsors realize their coffee bill isn’t likely to make it into law. Even if it cleared the House and Senate, Trump would probably veto it.
They are more hopeful that the talk of how high coffee prices are affecting U.S. consumers, aka voters, might prompt the White House to exempt coffee from its tariffs. Such exemptions have been created for other products affected by the Trump tariffs.
Bacon also said that he hopes the tariff bill can help get the rest of the sponsors’ Capitol Hill colleagues to at least debate, and possibly reclaim their constitutional role in tariff policy.
You also might find these items of interest:
- Tariffs’ political perspectives and practical effects
- Trump’s tariffs will increase U.S. shoppers’ grocery bills
- 10 states tax groceries, but 4 looking to cut their food levies
