'Panic rippling': Coffee exec warns 'things are getting very dark' under Trump

President Donald Trump's trade policies are rapidly becoming a nightmare for the coffee industry, Todd Carmichael, co-founder of the coffee retailer La Colombe, warned in The Washington Post on Monday.

Coffee already began to surge in price from practically the moment Trump took office, in anticipation of his tariff threats. But things are starting to get even worse, wrote Carmichael.

"In February, the global price of arabica coffee reached $4.41 per pound, the highest price in recorded history, surpassing the spikes of 2011 and the frost crisis of 1977," wrote Carmichael. "That milestone occurred before any tariffs were announced, and though the price has since receded, it remains at elevated levels. As of June, a pound of roasted coffee costs U.S. customers nearly 13 percent more than it did a year earlier."

With the tariffs now kicking in, he continued, "a wave of panic is rippling through the global coffee trade."

"Coffee, much like bananas, is a tropical fruit," Carmichael wrote. "But coffee is even pickier: It doesn’t just need the heat and humidity of the tropics; it can typically grow only at tropical altitudes. These conditions are found almost exclusively in a narrow band around the equator, often referred to as the 'coffee belt.' Within the United States, only a tiny fraction of land in Hawaii and Puerto Rico meets these requirements, making domestic coffee farming extremely limited."

For decades, U.S. policymakers understood this, which was why coffee was largely exempt from tariffs. But this is all changing under Trump, who has charged taxes on imports across the board except for a very few large companies that have ingratiated themselves with him.

New coffee tariffs put an industry of millions of U.S. jobs dependent on the imports at risk, he wrote, and threatens to undermine access in the world's largest coffee market.

"Surely, coffee is too essential and too global to put at the center of a geopolitical chess match," Carmichael concluded. "Whether the tariffs deliver diplomatic wins remains uncertain, but their effect on the daily cup of coffee is already being felt and will get much worse. Things are beginning to get very dark: for the consumer, the countless coffee roasters, coffee importers and the 1.7 million people who work in the trade."