The US business community came out in defense that President Donald Trump’s tariff does not reach agricultural products.
US restaurants report to be “extremely concerned” that the imposition of food and beverage tariffs would have profound consequences for the sector, which already operates with minimum profit margins ,.
In a letter forwarded to USTR (United States Commercial Representative) Jamieson Greer, NRA (National Association of Restaurants) nominally cites dependence on Brazilian items.
“The imposition of tariffs on key partners, such as Brazil and the European Union, would represent significant challenges for the restaurant supply chain, affecting the cost and availability of essential products such as coffee, beef, wines and European spirits,” wrote Sean Kennedy, executive vice president and coordinator of public relations of the entity.
NRA also points out that beef prices are already at record levels in the country, impacting the price of items such as hamburgers and clubs on the menus.
Data from USDA (USA Department of Agriculture) show that the US cattle industry is experiencing a complicated moment :.
Despite the critical scenario, US entities seek an approach to non -confrontation to the White House, signaling support for Trump’s commercial protection policy.
What they argue is that there is a “calibration” in Republican’s tariff strategy so that the US production chain is not affected by the lack of products that the country is not able to produce, as the CBA (Association of Consumer Brands) points out.
In the document addressed to the United States President, the entity’s CEO, Melissa Hockstad, stresses that “some essential ingredients and products are simply not available in the US”, listing coffee, oats, cocoa, spices, tropical fruits and even a specific type of steel used in the manufacture of food cans and home products.
“As you go on with your trade policy agenda, we believe there is a way to raise your approach to tariffs to ensure that they have the maximum impact without improper consequences on leading US manufacturers and the nature composed of price increases that consumers can see in the supermarket,” writes Hockstad.
“We respectfully appeal to that granting exemptions specific agricultural to protect American manufacturers who depend on national farmers and sources, but still have to resort to imports to certain essential ingredients and inputs that would otherwise be impossible to obtain.”
Not to mention nominally in climate change, the CBA explains that supply agreements are dictated by cultivation conditions and “other factors” that make US production “impossible or extremely limited.”
About US production, looking at Florida’s orange industry, for example, it is noted that it was already more expressive.
However, due to climate pests and disasters that practically made production unfeasible in the region. From a 280 million boxes of boxes, US cultivation fell to 12 million in the last crop.
“Since many essential food products cannot be grown in the US throughout the year, we depend on global supply chains to maintain quality, accessibility and consistency,” NRA’s Sean Kennedy emphasizes.
“Tariffs on these critical imports would interrupt supply chains, increase the costs for operators, and finally lead to higher prices in menus to consumers,” he concludes.
Justifying the tariff, Trump stated that this is an emergency action for the US to face the commercial deficit they have with their partners. On the other hand, Brazil more buys than it sells to Americans, and yet it got the highest fare.
NRA uses the technical argument, indicating that “food and beverage products do not contribute significantly to these deficits, [assim] We hope these products can be exempt. “
Both entities also sent their appeals to Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture; and Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce.
With information from Fernando Nakagawa, from CNN
