Orange juice prices could rise by 20% to 25%, according to Johanna Foods, a small U.S. business suing the White House over tariffs threatened against Brazil.

President Donald Trump said in a July 9 letter to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that he would apply a 50% tariff to all imports from Brazil starting Aug. 1.

Trump said the high tariff rate was necessary because of ‘the way Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro.’

Prosecutors in Brazil have alleged that Bolsonaro was part of a scheme that included a plan to assassinate the country’s current president, who defeated him in the last election, and Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing.

Trump also said Brazil was censoring U.S.-based social media platforms and was running “unsustainable Trade Deficits” with the United States.

However, the United States has a goods trade surplus with Brazil — more than $7 billion last year, according to data from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Johanna Foods, which says it supplies nearly 75% of all private label “not from concentrate” orange juice to customers in the U.S., says those arguments do not constitute an economic emergency and therefore the president does not have the power to levy this tariff.

“The Brazil Letter does not refer to any legal or statutory authority under which the Brazil Tariff can be imposed by the President,” the company’s attorney Marc Kaplin writes in a filing.

“The Brazil Letter does not constitute a proper executive action, is not an Executive Order, does not reference or incorporate any Executive Orders or modify or amend any existing Executive Order,” the attorney continued.

The company said some of its customers include Walmart, Aldi, Wegman’s, Safeway and Albertsons.

Johanna Foods CEO Robert Facchina said the duty would result in an estimated $68 million hit, exceeding any single year of profits since the company was created in 1995.

“The Brazil Tariff will result in a significant, and perhaps prohibitive, price increase in a staple American breakfast food,” the lawsuit reads.

“The not from concentrate orange juice ingredients imported from Brazil are not reasonably available from any supplier in the United States in sufficient quantity or quality to meet the Plaintiffs’ production needs.”

Orange juice prices have already been rising across the country. Over the last year, the average price of a 16-ounce container rose 23 cents, or more than 5%, to $4.49, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Orange juice futures, the global benchmark that tracks the commodity, have also jumped recently. During the last month, they are up nearly 40%, with most of that increase coming on the heels of Trump’s threat.

Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled last month that social media companies can be held accountable for the content posted on their platforms. Elon Musk’s social media site, X, was also briefly banned last year in Brazil after Musk refused to comply with a court request to ban some accounts.

Facchina says layoffs of union manufacturing employees, administrative staff and a reduced production capacity at the company’s Flemington, New Jersey, and Spokane, Washington, facilities are near-certain should these tariffs go into effect. Johanna Foods employs almost 700 people across Washington state and New Jersey.

Brazil was the 18th-largest source of U.S. goods imports last year, with more than $42 billion worth of imports entering the country, according to U.S. International Trade Commission data.

In its legal filing, the company asks the Court of International Trade to declare that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not grant Trump the statutory authority to impose the tariffs against Brazil, and that the president has not identified a national emergency or “unusual and extraordinary threat” as required by the IEEPA law to impose the tariffs.

In response to the lawsuit, a White House spokesperson said the administration is ‘legally and fairly using tariff powers that have been granted to the executive branch by the Constitution and Congress to level the playing field for American workers and safeguard our national security.”

Elon Musk’s health tech company Neuralink labeled itself a “small disadvantaged business” in a federal filing with the U.S. Small Business Administration, shortly before a financing round valued the company at $9 billion.

Neuralink is developing a brain-computer interface (BCI) system, with an initial aim to help people with severe paralysis regain some independence. BCI technology broadly can translate a person’s brain signals into commands that allow them to manipulate external technologies just by thinking.

Neuralink’s filing, dated April 24, would have reached the SBA at a time when Musk was leading the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. At DOGE, Musk worked to slash the size of federal agencies.

MuskWatch first reported on the details of Neuralink’s April filing.

According to the SBA’s website, a designation of SDB means a company is at least 51% owned and controlled by one or more “disadvantaged” persons who must be “socially disadvantaged and economically disadvantaged.” An SDB designation can also help a business “gain preferential access to federal procurement opportunities,” the SBA website says.

The Department of Justice has previously fined companies for making false claims about their SDB status.

Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, in addition to his other businesses like artificial intelligence startup xAI and tunneling venture The Boring Company. In 2022, Musk led the $44 billion purchase of Twitter, which he later named X before merging it with xAI.

Jared Birchall, a Neuralink executive, was listed as the contact person on the filing from April. Birchall, who also manages Musk’s money as head of his family office, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Neuralink, which incorporated in Nevada, closed a $650 million funding round in early June at a $9 billion valuation. ARK Invest, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital and Thrive Capital were among the investors. Neuralink said the fresh capital would help the company bring its technology to more patients and develop new devices that “deepen the connection between biological and artificial intelligence.”

Under Musk’s leadership at DOGE, the initiative took aim at government agencies that emphasized diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). In February, for example, DOGE and Musk boasted of nixing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of funding for the Department of Education that would have gone towards DEI-related training grants.

The U.S. shipbuilding industry is looking for help. A South Korean company is answering the call.

Hanwha Philly Shipyard CEO David Kim, nodding to the gargantuan vessels under construction just off the Delaware River, on Wednesday offered the kind of vision that has brought some optimism back to the U.S. shipbuilding community.

“You take that level of experience, the technology that we have, the know-how, the process expertise, and so clearly, we believe we have a lot to bring to the Philly Shipyard, as well as to the U.S. maritime industrial base, in terms of modernization capacity,” he said on a walkthrough of the shipyard.

Hanwha Group bought the Philly Shipyard in December for $100 million and plans to invest multiple times that amount in the yard, training over a thousand new workers and bringing in new high-tech equipment. The company hopes to build naval ships and become the first U.S. builder of specialized liquefied natural gas tankers.

Shipbuilding in the United States has been all but dormant. China, South Korea, Japan and Europe all produce far more ships than the United States, with the few shipyards still operating in the country concentrating on military ships.

Revitalizing shipbuilding has been one of the areas President Donald Trump has pointed to as part of a broader effort to bring manufacturing back to the United States — a move some see as shortsighted considering the costs associated with building the kind of gigantic modern ships that remain a core part of how goods and commodities move around the planet.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Coca-Cola in the United States will begin to be made with cane sugar, but the company did not explicitly say that was the case when it was asked later about Trump’s claim.

Trump said Wednesday afternoon on Truth Social that he had been speaking to Coca-Cola about using cane sugar in the sodas sold in the United States and that the company agreed to his idea.

‘This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!’ Trump wrote in the post.

But Coca-Cola did not commit to the change when NBC News asked it later about Trump’s post.

‘We appreciate President Trump’s enthusiasm for our iconic Coca-Cola brand,’ a company spokesperson said in a statement. ‘More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon.’

It remains unclear whether Coca-Cola agreed to Trump’s proposal or whether the beloved soda will still be made with corn syrup.

The Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again initiative, named for the social movement aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has pushed food companies to alter their formulations to remove ingredients like artificial dyes.

Coca-Cola produced for the U.S. market is typically sweetened with corn syrup, while the company uses cane sugar in some other countries, including Mexico and various European countries.

Coca-Cola announced in 1984 it was going to “significantly increase” the amount of corn syrup it was using in its U.S. products, The New York Times reported at the time.

Coca-Cola said it would use corn syrup to sweeten bottled and canned Coke, as well as caffeine-free Coke, but left itself “flexibility” to use other sweeteners, like sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, the Times reported.

Kennedy has criticized how much sugar is consumed in the American diet and has said updated dietary guidelines released this summer will advise people to ‘eat whole food.’

Trump has been known to enjoy Coca-Cola products. The Wall Street Journal reported that a Diet Coke button, which allows him to order the soda on demand, has joined him in the Oval Office for both of his terms.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday it was ‘highly unlikely’ he would fire Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve.

His statements, made in the Oval Office, come less than 24 hours after telling a room full of Republican lawmakers that he was considering doing so.

“No, we’re not planning on doing anything,” Trump told reporters in response to a question about whether he wanted to fire Powell.

“I don’t rule out anything but I think it’s highly unlikely unless he has to leave for fraud,” Trump said, while criticizing Powell’s management of a Fed renovation project that the White House had recently floated as a pretext for removing the Fed chair.

The president had asked GOP lawmakers late Tuesday how they felt about firing the Fed chair, according to a senior White House official. They expressed approval for firing him. The president then indicated he likely would soon but that no final decision had been made.

Still, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., posted on X on Tuesday night that Powell’s firing was ‘imminent,’ something that prompted a sell-off in stock futures before Wednesday’s market open. By noon Wednesday, major stock indexes had recovered to trade almost flat on the day.

CBS News first reported the meeting. A Fed official declined comment to CNBC on the report about the Trump meeting Tuesday, which came after Republicans blocked a procedural vote on crypto legislation that the president favors.

Trump and other White House figures have launched a multipronged attack on Powell to push the central bank to lower its key borrowing rate. Most recently, they have blasted Powell over renovations to the Fed’s Washington headquarters, raising suspicion that Trump could try to remove him for cause.

A recent Supreme Court decision indicated that the president does not have the authority to remove Fed officials at will.

In a CNBC interview Wednesday, Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, repeated that “I don’t see” Trump firing Powell. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also told Bloomberg News on Tuesday that he didn’t expect Trump to move in that direction.

However, Luna, who on Tuesday joined with other party members in blocking the crypto initiative, said on X that a move against Powell is forthcoming.

“Hearing Jerome Powell is getting fired! From a very serious source,” she said, later adding, “I’m 99% sure firing is imminent.”

Consumer prices rose in June as President Donald Trump’s tariffs began to slowly work their way through the U.S. economy.

The consumer price index, a broad-based measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.3% on the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. The numbers were right in line with the Dow Jones consensus, though the annual rate is the highest since February.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core inflation picked up 0.2% on the month, with the annual rate moving to 2.9%, with the annual rate in line with estimates. The monthly level was slightly below the outlook for a 0.3% gain.

Prior to June, inflation had been on a generally downward slope for the year, with headline CPI at a 3% annual rate back in January and progressing gradually slower in the subsequent months despite fears that Trump’s trade war would drive prices higher.

While the evidence in June was mixed on how much influence tariffs had over prices, there were signs that the duties are having an impact.

Vehicle prices fell on the month, with prices on new vehicles down 0.3% and used car and trucks tumbling 0.7%. However, tariff-sensitive apparel prices increased 0.4%. Household furnishings, which also are influenced by tariffs, increased 1% for the month.

Shelter prices increased just 0.2% for the month, but the BLS said the category was still the largest contributor to the overall CPI gain. The index rose 3.8% from a year ago. Within the category, a measurement of what homeowners feel they could receive if they rented their properties increased 0.3%. However, lodging away from home slipped 2.9%.

Elsewhere, food prices increased 0.3% for the month, putting the annual gain at 3%, while energy prices reversed a loss in May and rose 0.9%, though they are still down marginally from a year ago. Medical care services were up 0.6% while transportation services edged higher by 0.2%.

With the rise in prices, inflation-adjusted hourly earnings fell 0.1% in June, the BLS said in a separate release. Real earnings increased 1% on an annual basis.

Markets largely took the inflation report in stride. Stock market indexes were mixed while Treasury yields were mostly negative.

Amid the previously muted inflation ratings, Trump has been urging the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, which it has not done since December. The president has insisted that tariffs are not aggravating inflation, and has contended that the Fed’s refusal to ease is raising the costs the U.S. has to pay on its burgeoning debt and deficit problem.

Central bankers, led by Chair Jerome Powell, have refused to budge. They insist that the U.S. economy is in a strong enough position now that the Fed can afford to wait to see the impact tariffs will have on inflation. Trump in turn has called on Powell to resign and is certain to name someone else to the job when the chair’s term expires in May 2026.

Markets expect the Fed to stay on hold when it meets at the end of July and then cut by a quarter percentage point in September.

The Federal Reserve has brought in its inspector general to review a building expansion that has drawn fire from the White House, according to a source familiar with the issue.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell asked for the review, following blistering criticism of the project, initially pegged at $2.5 billion but hit by cost overruns that have brought accusations from President Donald Trump and other administration officials of “fundamental mismanagement.”

“The idea that the Fed could print money and then spend $2.5 billion on a building without real congressional oversight, it didn’t occur to the people that framed the Federal Reserve Act,” Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “We’ve got a real problem of oversight and excess spending.”

The inspector general serves the Fed and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and is responsible for looking for fraud, waste and abuse. Powell’s request was reported first by Axios.

In a letter posted to social media last week, Russell Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget, also slammed the project, which involves two of the Fed’s three Washington, D.C., buildings including its main headquarters known as the Eccles Building.

Vought, during a CNBC interview Friday, likened the building to the Palace of Versailles in France and charged that Powell was guilty of “fiscal mismanagement” at the Fed.

For its part, the central bank has posted a detailed frequently asked questions page on its site, highlighting key details and explaining why some of the specifications were changed or “scaled back or eliminated” at least in part due to higher-than-expected construction costs.

“The project also remediates safety issues by removing hazardous materials such as asbestos and lead and will bring the buildings up to modern code,” the page explains. “While periodic work has been done to keep the buildings occupiable, neither building has seen a comprehensive renovation since they were constructed.”

The Fed is not a taxpayer-funded institution and is therefore not under the OMB’s supervision. It has worked with the National Capital Planning Commission in Washington on the project, but also noted on the FAQ page that it “does not regard any of those changes as warranting further review.”

In separate comments, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, speaking Sunday on Fox News, called the renovation costs “outrageous” and said it was more evidence the central bank “has lost its way.” Warsh is considered a strong contender to succeed Powell when the latter’s term as chair expires in May 2026.

LONDON/NEW YORK, July 11 (Reuters) – Suppliers to Walmart WMT.N have delayed or put on hold some orders from garment manufacturers in Bangladesh, according to three factory owners and correspondence from a supplier seen by Reuters, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of a 35% tariff on the textile hub disrupts business.

Bangladesh is the third-largest exporter of apparel to the United States, and it relies on the garment sector for 80% of its export earnings and 10% of its GDP. The factory owners all said they expected orders to fall if the August 1 tariffs go into effect, as they are unable to absorb that 35% rate.

Iqbal Hossain, managing director of garment manufacturer Patriot Eco Apparel Ltd, told Reuters an order for nearly 1 million swim shorts for Walmart was put on hold on Thursday due to the tariff threat.

“As we discussed please hold all below Spring season orders we are discussing here due to heavy Tariff % imposed for USA imports,” Faruk Saikat, assistant merchandising manager at Classic Fashion, wrote in an email to Hossain and others seen by Reuters. Classic Fashion is a supplier and buying agent that places orders for retailers.

“As per our management instruction we are holding Bangladesh production for time being and IN case Tariff issues settled then we will continue as we planned here.”

The hold was not decided by Walmart, Saikat told Reuters, but by Classic Fashion itself.

Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.

Bangladesh is currently in talks with the United States in Washington to try to negotiate a lower tariff. Trump in recent days has revived threats of higher levies on numerous nations.

“If the 35% tariff remains for Bangladesh, that will be very tough to sustain, honestly speaking, and there will not be as many orders as we have now,” said Mohiuddin Rubel, managing director at jeans manufacturer Denim Expert Ltd in Dhaka.

Rubel, whose company produces jeans for H&M HMb.ST and other retailers, said he expects clients will ask him to absorb part of the tariff, but added this would not be possible financially. Manufacturers have already absorbed part of the blanket 10% tariff imposed by the U.S. on April 2.

“Only probably the big, big companies can a little bit sustain (tariffs) but not the small and medium companies,” he said.

Retailers have front-loaded orders since Trump returned to the White House, anticipating higher tariffs. Jeans maker Levi’s LEVI.N, which imports from Bangladesh, said on Thursday it has 60% of the inventory it needs for the rest of 2025.

U.S. clothing imports from Bangladesh totaled $3.38 billion in the first five months of 2025, up 21% from the year-earlier period, according to U.S. International Trade Commission data.

Another Dhaka-based garment factory owner said an importer with whom he was negotiating a spring 2026 order of trousers for Walmart asked him on Thursday to wait a week before the order would be confirmed due to the tariff risk.

Hossain said he may look for more orders from European clients to make up for lost orders if the U.S. 35% tariff gets implemented, even if he has to cut prices to stimulate demand.

(Reuters reporting by Helen Reid in London and Siddharth Cavale in New York; Editing by David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis)

President Donald Trump’s proposed 50% tariff on Brazilian imports is bad news for coffee drinkers.

Brazil, the largest U.S. supplier of green coffee beans, accounts for about a third of the country’s total supply, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Coffee beans need to grow in a warm, tropical climate, making Hawaii and Puerto Rico the only suitable places in the United States to farm the crop. But, as the world’s top consumer of coffee, the U.S. requires a massive supply to stay caffeinated. Mintel estimates that the U.S. coffee market reached $19.75 billion last year.

The increase in trade duties could leave consumers with even higher costs after several years of soaring coffee prices. Inflation-weary consumers have seen prices for lattes and cold brew climb as droughts and frost hit the global coffee supply, particularly in Brazil. Earlier this year, coffee bean futures hit all-time highs. They rose 1% on Thursday, although still well below the record set in February.

To be sure, there’s still time for Brazil to strike a deal with the White House before the tariffs go into effect on Aug. 1. Plus, food and beverage makers are hoping that the Trump administration will grant exemptions for key commodities. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in an interview in late June that the White House is considering exemptions for produce that can’t be grown in the U.S. — including coffee.

But if that doesn’t happen, coffee companies like Folgers owner J.M. Smucker, Keurig Dr Pepper, Starbucks and Dutch Bros will face much higher costs for the commodity. Giuseppe Lavazza, chair of Italian roaster Lavazza, said on Bloomberg TV on Thursday morning that the latest tariff could mean “a lot of inflation” for the coffee industry.

Roasters will try to mitigate the impact of the higher tariff, but it won’t be easy.

“Every company is always trying to eke out the next efficiency, to dial into their operations or find the way to minimize inflationary pressures, but a 50% tariff on a commodity that fundamentally is not available in the U.S. — you can’t really do much with that,” Tom Madrecki, vice president of supply chain and logistics for the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group that represents the consumer packaged goods industry.

One mitigation tactic could be to import beans from countries other than Brazil, but companies will likely still be paying more for the commodity.

“A characteristic of tariffs, especially when you have tariffs on multiple countries at once, is that not just the inbound cost rises. It allows the pricing floor to also rise,” Madrecki said. “If you have cheaper coffee in a country different than Brazil, you’re not inclined to sell it at a 30% lower cost. You’re going to try to bump your coffee up a bit more, too.”

At-home coffee brands, like JM Smucker’s Dunkin’ and Kraft Heinz’s Maxwell House, have already been hiking their prices this year in response to spiking commodity costs. More price increases could be on the way for consumers, although retailers may push back.

Keurig Dr Pepper would consider additional price hikes in the latter half of the year to mitigate the impact of tariffs, CEO Tim Cofer said in late April, after Trump introduced his initial round of so-called reciprocal duties.

And Smuckers warned investors on its quarterly conference call in early June that tariffs on coffee were weighing on its profits. Coffee accounts for roughly a third of the company’s revenue.

“Green coffee is an unavailable natural resource that cannot be grown in the continental United States due to its reliance on a tropical climate,” Smuckers CEO Mark Smucker said. “We currently purchase approximately 500 million pounds of green coffee annually, with the majority coming from Brazil and Vietnam, the two largest coffee-producing countries.”

Vietnam, which announced a tentative trade deal with the White House earlier this month, supplies about 8% of the U.S.’s green coffee beans. Under the agreement, the U.S. will impose a 20% duty on Vietnamese imports.

Consumers who prefer a caramel macchiato from Starbucks for their caffeine hit will likely see a more muted impact on their wallets.

After several quarters of sluggish U.S. sales, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol said in late 2024 that the company wouldn’t raise prices in 2025, in the hopes of winning back customers who had complained about how expensive its drinks had gotten. While it waits for its turnaround to take hold, Starbucks might choose to swallow the higher coffee costs.

The coffee giant also benefits from its diversity — both in suppliers and the breadth of its menu, which now includes the popular Refreshers line. Starbucks imports its coffee from 30 different countries, and roughly 10% of its cost of goods sold in North America comes from coffee.

The new trade duty could mean a 0.5% increase in Starbucks’ North American cost of goods sold, assuming about 22% of its beans come from Brazil, TD Cowen analyst Andrew Charles wrote in a note to clients on Thursday. Starbucks’ packaged drinks, which are distributed by Nestle, could see their cost of goods sold increase 3.5%. Altogether, that represents a 5-cent drag on annual earnings per share, according to Charles.

For rival Dutch Bros, higher coffee costs also wouldn’t hurt its bottom line much. Coffee accounts for less than a tenth of the drive-thru coffee chain’s cost of goods sold. Assuming that Dutch Bros sources more than half of its coffee from Brazil, its cost of goods sold would rise just 1.3%, according to Charles’ estimates.

President Donald Trump’s budget chief on Thursday said that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell “has grossly mismanaged the Fed” and suggested he had misled Congress about a pricey and “ostentatious” renovation of the central bank’s headquarters.

The broadside by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought opened up a new front in Trump’s war of words against Powell.

Trump has repeatedly called on the Fed chairman to cut interest rates, without success. He reportedly has considered firing Powell and, more recently, publicly naming the chairman’s replacement months earlier than the end of Powell’s term next spring.

Vought’s letter raises the question of whether Trump will seek to remove Powell for cause, at least ostensibly.

But the Supreme Court in a recent decision strongly suggested that Federal Reserve board members have special protection from being fired by a president.

“While continuing to run a deficit since FY23 (the first time in the Fed’s history), the Fed is way over budget on the renovation of its headquarters,” Vought wrote in a post on the social media site X.

“Now up to $2.5 billion, roughly $700 million over its initial cost,” Vought wrote. “The cost per square foot is $1,923–double the cost for renovating an ordinary historic federal building. The Palace of Versailles would have cost $3 billion in today’s dollars!”

Vought’s tweet linked to a letter he sent Powell that referenced the Fed boss’s June 25 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.

“Your testimony raises serious questions about the project’s compliance with the National Capital Planning Act, which requires that projects like the Fed headquarters renovation be approved by the National Capital Planning Commission,” Vought wrote.

“The plans for this project called for rooftop terrace gardens, VIP private dining rooms and elevators, water features, premium marble, and much more,” he wrote.

But Powell, in his testimony, said, “There’s no VIP dining room. There’s no new marble. There are no special elevators. There are no new water features. There’s no beehives and there’s no roof terrace gardens,” Vought wrote.

“Although minor deviations from approved plans may be inevitable, your testimony appears to reveal that the project is out of compliance with the approved plan with regard to major design elements,” Vought wrote.