Brazilian José Natal da Silva often tends to his modest coffee plantation in Rio de Janeiro state in the middle of the night, sacrificing sleep to fend off pests that could inflict harm on his precious crops.
Anxiety troubled his shut-eye even more in recent weeks, after President Donald Trump's announcement of a 50% tariff on Brazilian imported goods, which experts expect to drive down the price of coffee in Brazil.
Da Silva sighed as he recounted his fears, sitting on the dry earth surrounded by his glossy green arabica coffee shrubs in the small municipality of Porciuncula.
"We're sad because we struggle so much. We spend years battling to get somewhere. And suddenly, everything starts falling apart, and we're going to lose everything," da Silva said. "How are we going to survive?"
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Trump's tariff on Brazil is overtly political. In his public letter detailing the reasons for the hike, the U.S. president called the trial of his ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, a "witch hunt." Bolsonaro is accused of masterminding a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss to left-leaning President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The tariff sparked fear in Brazil, particularly among sectors with deep ties to U.S. markets such as beef, orange juice -- and coffee. Minor coffee producers say the import tax will hit their margins and adds to the uncertainty already generated by an increasingly dry and unpredictable climate.
Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, exports about 85% of its production. The United States is the country's top coffee buyer and represents about 16% of exports, according to Brazil's coffee exporters council Cecafe.
The president of Cecafe's deliberative council, Márcio Ferreira, told journalists that he thinks the U.S. will continue to import Brazilian coffee, even with the hefty tariff. "It's obvious that neither the United States nor any other source can give up on Brazil, even if it's tariffed," he said.
It may hurt competition
Still, the tariff likely will decrease Brazilian coffee's competitiveness in the U.S. and naturally reduce demand, said Leandro Gilio, a professor of global agribusiness at Insper business school in Sao Paulo.
"There's no way we can quickly redirect our coffee production to other markets," Gilio said. "This principally affects small producers, who have less financial power to make investments or support themselves in a period like this."
Family farmers produce more than two-thirds of Brazilian coffee. They are a majority in Rio state's northwestern region, where most of the state's coffee production lies.
Coffee farming is the primary economic activity in these municipalities. In Porciuncula, which neighbors Brazil's largest coffee-producing state Minas Gerais, gentle mountains are layered with symmetrical lines of coffee shrubs.
Da Silva started working in the fields when he was 12. He owns about 40,000 coffee trees.
Besides coffee, he grows cassava, squash, bananas, oranges and lemons and has a few chickens that provide fresh eggs. "We have them because of the fear of not being able to eat. We wouldn't manage if everything were bought, because the profit is very low," he said.
Last year, drought -- made more likely by human-caused climate change -- devastated large swathes of da Silva's production. The reduction in supply pushed coffee prices up, but only after many small-scale farmers already sold all their crops.
Since peaking in February, prices of arabica fell 33% by July, according to the University of Sao Paulo's Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics, which provides renowned commodity price reports.
"When you make an investment, counting on a certain price for coffee, and then when you go to sell it the price is 20-30% less than you calculated, it breaks the producers," said Paulo Vitor Menezes Freitas, 31, who also owns a plantation of about 35,000 coffee trees in Varre-Sai.
Demands of farming
Life out in the fields is tough, according to Menezes Freitas.
During harvest season, he sometimes gets up at 3 a.m. to turn on a coffee drier, and goes to bed as late as midnight. The rest of the year is less intense but there are still few to no breaks because there's always work to do, he said.
Menezes Freitas, who is expecting his first child in October, said the tariff's announcement increased his fears for the future.
"It's scary. It feels like you're on shaky ground," he said. "If things get worse, what will we do? People will start pulling out their coffee and finding other ways to survive because they won't have the means to continue."
He said the tariff also will affect machinery and aluminum -- goods that producers like him use every day.
"We hope this calms down. Hopefully, they'll come to their senses and remove that tariff," he said. "I think it would be better for both the United States and Brazil."
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