One of 32 varieties of arabica coffee growing at Paraiba Federal University’s coffee research program in Areia, Paraiba.

Brazil is the world’s largest coffee producer. It has been important to its national economy since the 1700s, and today it is Brazil’s largest agricultural export to the United States. Even though it provides around one-third of all coffee drunk in the US, there are reasons to believe that the Trump administration has an inflated opinion of the US’ importance to Brazil’s coffee value chain. Last year, the US was only Brazil’s third-largest coffee consumer, following the EU, which imported around 50% of the coffee grown in Brazil, and Brazil itself, which consumed around 23% of its own coffee. During the last growing season........

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