A massive spike in cheaper Brazilian coffee imports into Colombia has producers worried about the integrity of the Café de Colombia brand.
In the cloudy mountains of Colombia’s coffee regions, beans have long told a story of resilience, craft, and a hard-won reputation for quality. Yet an emerging twist in the global coffee trade is casting a long shadow: the “ghost of triangulation” — the rerouting of Brazilian coffee through Colombia to avoid and exploit tariff gaps. With the United States imposing a 50% import tariff on Brazilian coffee, while Colombian beans face only 10%, the differential has opened a new commercial crack — one that the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia (FNC) is now racing to seal before it erodes the integrity of the country’s most valuable brand.
In a formal circular dated September 24, 2025, FNC CEO Germán Bahamón addressed exporters, customs agents, and other market actors. The directive warns that: “The current market situation generated by the distortion produced by the tariff difference between coffee origins for entry into the United States market is not only a situation that can alter competitive conditions but may incentivize practices that could put at risk the reputation of Colombian coffee.”
The Circular No. 004 lays out four clear instructions: strict compliance with quality norms under FNC supervision; domestic transport accompanied by an authorized Transit Guide for any coffee destined for export or crossing customs areas; avoidance of any action that could undermine the commercial positioning of Café de Colombia in global markets; and full adherence to export regulations and traceability procedures.
Bahamón’s tone is unmistakably serious. He reminds the industry that: “The protection of the reputation of Café de Colombia is a shared responsibility among producers, cooperatives, processors, exporters, marketers, and all actors in the value chain.” The issue is not merely about trade mechanics — it is about preserving a symbol of origin that took generations to build.
The numbers — and the incentives behind them—tell a revealing story. According to Brazil’s Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé), Colombian imports of Brazilian coffee surged 567% in September 2025 compared with the same month in 2024, and 42.6% in the first nine months of 2025 year-on-year, reaching roughly 485,633 sacks of 60 kilograms. Meanwhile, Brazil’s coffee exports to the United States fell 52.8% over the same period as the new tariffs took hold. The implication is clear: Brazilian beans facing steep US duties could find an alternate route through Colombia — where, once inside the supply chain, they might be relabeled, mixed, or reexported under the Colombian banner. Analysts describe this tariff arbitrage as a textbook case of triangulation.
This is not entirely new. As far back as 2021, a Bloomberg Línea investigation showed Colombia importing nearly a million sacks of coffee — much of it lower-cost robusta from Brazil — to meet domestic consumption, even while exporting almost all its own Arabica. According to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Colombia imported coffee worth about $202 million from Brazil in 2023, alongside smaller volumes from Peru, Vietnam, and Ecuador. What was once a modest, domestic-market practice has now ballooned into a trade imbalance fueled by foreign tariffs and opportunistic incentives.
At the heart of this issue lies a familiar tension between volume and value. Colombian coffee commands a quality premium — something the FNC calls “an asset built over decades by all coffee growers, exporters, and market agents.” The fear is that cheaper, lower-graded Brazilian beans could be blended or misrepresented, eroding that premium, harming smallholder incomes, and weakening the origin advantage that drives global demand. “Only through rigorous compliance with quality, traceability, and logistics norms,” the circular states, “can we shield this common asset from undue practices.”
What lies ahead for Colombia’s coffee sector is a delicate balancing act. The tariff gap offers an opening for market expansion, but it also demands stronger controls, stricter verification, and vigilant traceability. As Bahamón told Forbes, “Our mission is to protect the coffee produced by Colombian coffee growers and defend the most valuable asset we possess: the trust and prestige of Café de Colombia.”
In the end, this is a story where trade mechanics meet heritage — where tariffs, beans, and identity intertwine. Colombia may yet capture a larger share of the US coffee cup, but only if its commitment to authenticity remains unshaken. The 2025 cycle may prove that the price of prestige must be paid in guardrails as much as in sacks.