Every day, we get another tear-jerker about how the tariffs are destroying our businesses and consumers, and every day, the supposed experts act as if the retail price should go up the amount of the tariff instead of telling the truth that it should affect only the cost, not retail prices. 

We are being told how harmful the tariff is to Starbucks and other coffee buyers and sellers. 

This article acts as though a 46% tariff on Vietnamese coffee will destroy Starbucks profits and that consumers might not pay for the cost increase that Starbucks will have to pass on. 

Since the journalists won’t do any analysis I will show them how to do their job. 

The first thing that a good analyst would do in evaluating how the tariff would affect a company or a customer is look at the spot price of coffee on the NYSE.

Starbucks (SBUX) Drops as Tariffs Hit Its Supply Chain

Starbucks (SBUX) shares continue to slide in today’s trading following the Trump administration’s announcement of a surprising 46% tariff on goods imported from Vietnam, one of the many countries from which the coffee chain sources its beans. While Starbucks imports coffee from over 30 countries, Vietnam plays a significant role in its supply chain.

The spot price of coffee when Biden took office was around $1.23 per pound.  On the day he left office, the spot price was around $3.45 per pound.  So the price during Biden’s four years was up 180%.  I do not recall the media having sob pieces about how inflation was hurting Starbucks and other coffee sellers or consumers every day to scare the public. 

Nope, they were campaigning for Biden or Harris and telling the public that inflation wasn’t that bad and Biden’s policies were great. 

The price today is around $3.70 per pound, which appears to be around the cost in Vietnam and Colombia. I don’t drink coffee, but I looked up how many eight-ounce cups of coffee you get out of a pound.  The answer is 35.  So currently, the cost of the coffee alone is less than eleven cents per cup, and after the tariff, it is under sixteen cents per cup.

I would ask all consumers of coffee, is it worth a nickel a cup to get rid of unfair trade?  If Starbucks says the tariff on Vietnamese coffee costs more than a nickel, it is misleading the public.  I believe that Starbucks has enough profit that it can eat the nickel. 

Not only didn’t the media continually complain about how general inflation during the Biden years greatly harmed businesses and consumers, but they also didn’t complain about all the COVID restrictions that were falsely said to be based on science.

I hate to see any business fail, but it is a fact that around 600,000 small businesses fail every year.  Thank goodness we have a president who understands that it is suicidal to depend on a communist country, whose goal is to take over the world, for so many of the things we need, especially rare earth minerals.  They would cut us off in a second if there was a war, or if we defended Taiwan. 

Image via Pxhere.