CoffeeNetwork (New York) – The latest data from the Brazilian Coffee Exporters Association, CeCafe, showed that the United States remains the largest buyer of Brazilian coffee in the first seven months of 2025, importing 3.713 million bags, representing 16.8% of total shipments. Despite a 17.9% decline compared to purchases between January and July 2024, this volume is above the 16% share recorded in the same period last year.
"Until July, we hadn't actually seen the impact of the 50% tariff increase imposed by the US government on coffee imports from Brazil, as the measure came into effect on August 6th. As of now, American industries are on standby, as they have inventory for 30 to 60 days, which gives them some breathing room to wait a little longer for ongoing negotiations. However, what we're already seeing are potential requests for extensions, which are extremely detrimental to the sector," said Marcio Ferreira, President of CeCafe. According to him, when exporters close a deal, they enter into an Advance on Exchange Contract (ACC)—pre-shipment financing that allows companies to obtain advance funds based on an exchange contract—and have a period of time to fulfill this commitment. "With the extension of deals, the ACC is not honored, and we start to suffer from higher interest rates, high fees, and additional costs, such as overhead," he notes. Ferreira notes that the loss becomes even greater when analyzing the structure of the international market, which has been a so-called "inverted market" for some time, with more distant futures contracts depreciating relative to closer ones. "The December 2026 maturity on the New York Stock Exchange, for example, is at a discount of 9% to 10% compared to Dec/25. Dec/25, on the other hand, has depreciated by approximately US$10 per bag compared to Sep/25. In other words, postponing an August shipment, based on Sep/25, to the following months, based on Dec/25, would generate an additional loss of US$10 per bag, in addition to the impact of ACC interest rates and additional shipping, storage, and logistics costs. Therefore, postponing shipments, in addition to delaying foreign exchange and commitments, has this cumulative and accentuated negative impact," he analyzes.
Cecafé continues its work to reach an agreement with the Brazilian government, its North American private sector partners, and other relevant channels in the United States to allow Brazilian coffees to be included on the tariff exemption list, given that the product is not grown on a large scale in the partner country and, furthermore, because it plays a fundamental role in the US economy, in satisfying local consumers, and because the two countries have an interdependent relationship.
Brazil is the world's largest producer and exporter and the leading supplier of coffee to the Northern Hemisphere country, while the United States is the largest global importer and consumer, as well as the main destination for Brazilian coffee. Given the losses that will inevitably occur due to the tariffs, Cecafé has been in discussions with the federal governments and producing states regarding the need to implement "temporarily compensatory" measures while this trade imbalance between Brazilian coffee and other origins exporting to the United States, as well as to other destinations, persists.
According to the president of Cecafé, the institution, together with the Brazilian Association of the Soluble Coffee Industry (ABICS), has asked the Brazilian government to intensify efforts with other nations that purchase this product, aiming for bilateral agreements with trade reciprocity, so that these specific countries can grant Brazilian soluble coffee the same exemption offered to other competing origins. "Especially in the case of instant coffee, a finished product with added value and job creation, our industries have unfortunately been penalized in several of our export destinations, which reduces competitiveness, harms our industrial segment, and, consequently, our producers. We have been requesting attention in this regard for some time, and we need these bilateral agreements so that we can expand our participation in these other markets," Ferreira points out.
In light of content published in the press and on social media, which discusses China's accreditation of 183 new Brazilian coffee exporting companies, the president of Cecafé clarifies that many of these exporters already operated in the Chinese market and that this does not necessarily imply an increase in coffee shipments to the Asian country.
"We closely monitor the growth potential of Chinese consumption, a market that imported 571,866 bags from January to July and ranks 11th among Brazil's main coffee partners in 2025. This five-year accreditation, as reported in the media, is positive from a bureaucracy reduction perspective, but, in itself, it does not represent an increase in exports to China. This is something we expect to continue to achieve naturally over the coming years and decades, given the increased consumer interest, as we have experienced in other Asian countries," he concludes.
Alexis Rubinstein
