Trump's 50% tariff on Brazilian goods like coffee and orange juice could drive up US breakfast costs

GABRIELA SÁ PESSOA and MAURICIO SAVARESE

Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 1:26 PM 6 min read

SAO PAULO (AP) — President Donald Trump’s threat to boost import taxes by 50% on Brazilian goods could drive up the cost of breakfast in the United States. The prices of coffee and orange juice — two staples of the American morning diet — could be severely impacted if there's no agreement by Aug. 1.

Brazilian beef and regional airliners are also among the products that could be affected by Trump's decision announced Wednesday, which Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva promised on Thursday to reciprocate.

Trump’s move this time is overtly political, targeting the Brazilian Supreme Court trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of his who was charged for his alleged role in trying to overturn his 2022 election loss. The court’s prosecution of U.S.-based social media companies failing to comply with local laws was also mentioned by Trump in a public letter as a reason to hike Brazil’s import taxes.

The U.S. Census Bureau said the country had a $6.8 billion trade surplus with Brazil last year.

Brazilian exporters, bodies that represent them and politicians — many of whom are friendly with Bolsonaro — have poured criticism on Trump and urged Lula to negotiate, with coffee, beef and orange juice associations rallying to the nation’s defense.

“These new tariffs produce direct effects and hit Brazil's agribusiness, impacting the exchange rate, in the rise of the cost of imported inputs and in the competitiveness of Brazilian exports,” Brazil's agribusiness caucus in Congress said in a statement Thursday.

Spoiled breakfast

Lula said in interviews after Trump's move that the U.S. had a trade surplus with the South American nation of more than $410 billion over the past 15 years, with orange juice and coffee among the few goods made in Brazil that American consumers get in huge numbers.

Americans' coffee habit depends almost exclusively on imports. Official U.S. government data shows Brazil, the world’s top coffee producer, supplies about 30% of the American market, followed by Colombia at roughly 20% and Vietnam at about 10%. Global stocks are now low due to climate-related pressures that have recently strained coffee prices.

Marcos Matos, executive director of Cecafé, Brazil’s coffee exporters council, said the initial 10% tariff imposed by Trump in April was not as catastrophic as some of Brazil's competitors faced even higher rates. Vietnam, for example, began with a 46% tariff, now reduced to 20%. He sees the proposed increase to 50% as a serious escalation.

“It will harm us, coffee exporters, in terms of jobs, income and costs. And it will hurt the American industry and the end consumer, who will end up paying more,” Matos told The Associated Press. He added that agriculture minister Carlos Fávaro told him on Thursday he is looking for alternatives for coffee exporters as he negotiates with the U.S.