00:00If you're a coffee drinker, you've probably noticed the price has gone up a lot over the last year.
00:04The price per pound has increased from about $6.47 in September 2024 to about $9.14 in September 2025.
00:13That's a 41% increase.
00:15So Senators Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, and Rand Paul, a Republican,
00:19introduced a bill called the No Coffee Tax Act that would end all tariffs on coffee imports.
00:25It's one of multiple steps the Senate is taking to try to rein in tariffs President Trump has imposed this year
00:31on goods imported from pretty much the entire world.
00:35More than 99% of coffee sold in the United States is imported.
00:3935% of it is from Brazil and another 27% from Colombia.
00:44The tariffs on imports from those countries are 50% and 10% respectively.
00:48We do not grow coffee here in the number of the abundance that we need here for Americans,
00:54for the consumption that we have.
00:56So this is one that's just common sense.
00:58We have never put tariffs on it before.
01:00And why are we doing it now?
01:02The bill reverts all tariffs on coffee back to what they were the day before President Trump took office,
01:07which is zero.
01:08Talking to those small businesses, those coffee niche businesses, they're going to go under.
01:14They can't afford, they have a small profit margin, they can't afford more of these costs.
01:17So now we're going to put these small businesses out of business.
01:20The jobs are not going to be there.
01:21Economy's not going to expand in Nevada.
01:23That's not what we want.
01:25So we've got to be smart.
01:26The No Coffee Tax Act was introduced Wednesday,
01:28the day after the Senate voted to end Trump's tariffs on goods imported from Brazil.
01:33The vote was bipartisan, with five Republicans joining Democrats to get it over the line.
01:37It's unlikely to have any effect, however.
01:39It's really a messaging exercise.
01:42I don't expect the House to pass it out.
01:43And it's one of the reasons why I voted on the Brazil measure.
01:48That one's an outlier.
01:49I can almost see why the president is using some of the authorities for taking on nations where we have a trade deficit,
01:59but not a nation with a trade surplus.
02:01In 2024, the United States ran a trade surplus with Brazil of $6.8 billion on goods and $23.1 billion on services.
02:10Trump imposed the 50 percent tariff on the country in July after the country's Supreme Court took action against its former president,
02:17Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, and also sanctioned U.S. social media companies, restricting their access to the Brazilian market.
02:24You just don't impose a 50 percent tariff on a country because you disagree with a judicial outcome, respectfully to the president.
02:31Let's go after the bad actors, not nations with the trade surplus.
02:35Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky also voted to end tariffs on Brazil
02:39and called Trump's policy an indiscriminate trade war against both close allies and strategic adversaries.
02:45The Senate is also voting this week to end tariffs on Canadian products and other global tariffs President Trump implemented by declaring a national emergency.
02:55Although, just like the resolution regarding tariffs in Brazil, they're not likely to take effect.
03:01I'm Ray Bogan for Straight Arrow News.
03:03For more unbiased reporting straight from our nation's capital, download the SAN app.
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