Crapo Blocks Vote to End Tariffs on Coffee
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, blocked a vote on a bill that would end tariffs on imported coffee.
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Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto, D-Nev., who wrote the bill with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., had asked for unanimous consent to hold a vote on Nov. 5 on the No Coffee Tax Act. She said in a floor speech, "The United States does not have the natural climate or growing conditions needed to produce the amounts of coffee Americans consume every day. 99% of coffee in this country comes from another country.
"Until President [Donald] Trump took office, Americans had never paid broad tariffs on coffee imports.
"But now, this president has decided to recklessly impose tariffs on our top sources for coffee: Brazil at 50%, and other main coffee producers like Vietnam, Indonesia, Colombia, and Ethiopia are being tariffed at outrageous rates."
Products from Colombia and Ethiopia face a 10% tariff; Vietnamese coffee is taxed at 20% and Indonesian beans at 19%.
"I’m hearing from coffee roasters and wholesalers in Nevada who have been forced to raise their prices to keep up with these tariffs," Cortez-Masto said.
"That’s filtering down to local coffee shops -- our small businesses -- that are in turn having to raise their prices on consumers. The price of a cup of coffee has skyrocketed nearly 40% since last year."
Crapo responded, "I agree with my colleagues that tariffs generally should be as targeted as much possible to avoid harm to Americans."
He said the U.S. should consider more exemptions, and listen to stakeholders about unintended consequences of his tariff hikes.
However, he said Congress creating a one-off exemption "does not facilitate a predictable process for our negotiators or for any broader segment of the stakeholder engagement."
He noted that the Cambodia and Malaysia trade agreements recently released specifically exempt coffee and other products that are grown or mined in those countries and not in the U.S. from the International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs.