Sixty economies got tariffed on Friday and nobody could read the list until this morning. Coffee is exempt — all nine lines of it. The espresso machine on the water is not.

Somebody is opening a cafe in six weeks. The machine shipped from Milan in the middle of July, the lease started, the buildout is priced, and at 12:01 this morning — while they were asleep — the last window closed on the thing that would have let that machine come in at the price they quoted.

Here is the shape of what happened, because the order it happened in is the whole problem. The duties applied to goods entered on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern on July 24. The notice describing them was published today. Four days of tariff ran before the document existed in public.

So start with the good news, because it is real, and because it is the opposite of what most people in coffee have been braced for. Coffee got out. Not partially. Every line.

Six lines under 0901, and three more under 2101 covering unflavored instant coffee and coffee extracts. The Scope Limitations column next to every one of them is blank — no conditions, no quota, no country carve-out. Green, roasted, decaf, husks, instant, extracts. Nine lines, all the way out.

That holds against a tariff schedule that would otherwise have been brutal: twelve and a half percent on goods of Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Vietnam, Costa Rica and Nicaragua; ten percent on Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Indonesia, India, Ecuador and Mexico. Your green invoice does not move. If a broker or a supplier told you to price in a coffee tariff this month, they were reading the proposal, not the final action.

Now the part nobody has written up, because until this morning nobody could search it. I went looking for the machines.

Commercial brewing and hot-drink machinery under 8419.81.90 does appear in the annex — in the list attached to heading 9903.05.88, which exempts articles of CIVIL AIRCRAFT. The espresso machine qualifies if it is going on a plane.

Read the two halves. The cargo had to be already moving before the duties started, AND cleared before this morning. Miss either one and the rate attaches. A container of grinders that landed Friday and sat waiting on a customs broker over the weekend is on the wrong side of a line drawn at one minute past midnight.

What this actually does to a roaster is not a coffee-cost story at all. It is a capex story, and it lands hardest on the people you sell to. A two-group Italian head that entered free now enters at ten percent. German grinders, same. Swiss equipment sits in a separate structure at twelve and a half. Chinese-made batch brewers, kettles, urns, shop fitout — twelve and a half on top of whatever duty they already carried. A wholesale account that signed a buildout number in June is short several thousand dollars and does not know it yet.

Kept honest: these are final actions already in force, not proposals — but the exemption is from THESE Section 301 actions only. The notice says so directly: products covered by the exemption “shall continue to be subject to antidumping, countervailing or other duties, taxes, fees, exactions and charges.” Nothing here touches Section 232, nothing here touches AD/CVD. The 10 vs 12.5 percent split is per economy, not per product, and several economies — the EU, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan — are structured NET of the most-favored-nation rate rather than added on top of it, so do not describe those as a flat surcharge. The equipment figures follow from the published duty rates plus the country heading; the classification of any particular machine is the importer’s call and their broker’s, and some machines will land on other subheadings than the two named here — parts under 8419.90 in particular appear in the civil-aircraft list and need case-by-case care. Nicaragua carries a separate, earlier Section 301 regime of its own. I found no CBP guidance message telling brokers how to file the exemption, so a broker may be working without it. And one structural note that is part of the story: the Federal Register’s own copy renders all 345 annex pages as images, so the HTS lines quoted here are unsearchable in the official version — they were read from USTR’s text-bearing PDF of the same notice, which is the only copy a person can actually search.

Sources (primary, verified today): Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, “Notice of Actions in Section 301 Investigations… Related to the Failure of Each Economy To Impose and Effectively Enforce a Prohibition on the Importation of Goods Produced With Forced Labor,” 91 FR 47318 (July 28, 2026) — effective dates and the DATES paragraph confirmed against the Federal Register JSON API record. The annex HTS lines, headings 9903.05.85 through 9903.05.88, and the coffee exemptions were read from USTR’s own 431-page PDF of the same notice, which is the only text-bearing copy — the govinfo/Federal Register version publishes the annexes as 326 TIFF images. The underlying presidential direction is the Memorandum of July 23, 2026, 91 FR 47717. The Brazil action is USTR Notice of Action, published July 20, 2026, with its in-transit heading 9903.05.02 read from USTR’s Brazil PDF. Duty rates for 8419.81.90 and 8516.71.00 are from the USITC HTS REST endpoint. No trade coverage supplied any fact in this edition.

The tariff action that hit 60 economies was published this morning. The duties have been in force since 12:01 a.m. on July 24.

Four days of tariff ran before anyone could read the document.

For coffee, the news is good, and it's the opposite of what people have been braced for. Coffee is exempt. Not partially — every line:

0901.11.00 Coffee, not roasted, not decaffeinated
0901.12.00 Coffee, not roasted, decaffeinated
0901.21.00 Coffee, roasted, not decaffeinated
0901.22.00 Coffee, roasted, decaffeinated
0901.90.10 Coffee husks and skins
0901.90.20 Coffee substitutes containing coffee

Plus three more lines under 2101 for unflavored instant and coffee extracts. The "Scope Limitations" column beside every one of them is blank. No conditions, no quota, no country carve-out.

That's against rates that would have been brutal: 12.5% on goods of Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Nicaragua. 10% on Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Indonesia, India, Ecuador, Mexico.

Your green invoice doesn't move. If someone told you to price in a coffee tariff this month, they were reading the June proposal, not the final action.

Now the part I haven't seen anywhere, because until this morning it wasn't searchable.

I went looking for the equipment.

HTS 8516.71.00 — USITC calls it "Coffee or tea makers" — appears ZERO times in the 431-page notice. Not exempted. Not limited. Not mentioned.

Commercial hot-drink machinery, 8419.81.90, IS in the annex. It's in the list attached to heading 9903.05.88, which exempts articles of civil aircraft. Your espresso machine qualifies if it's going on a plane.

So: an Italian two-group head that entered free now enters at 10%. German grinders, same. Swiss equipment sits in a separate net-of-MFN structure at 12.5%. Chinese batch brewers, kettles, urns, shop fitout — 12.5% on top of existing duty.

This isn't a coffee-cost story. It's a capex story, and it lands on the cafes you sell to.

And the window shut this morning. Heading 9903.05.85 gave a grace period to goods that (1) were already loaded and in transit before 12:01 a.m. July 24, and (2) got entered before 12:01 a.m. July 28. Both halves required. A container of grinders that landed Friday and waited on a broker over the weekend is on the wrong side of a line drawn at one minute past midnight.

There's a second action underneath this one. Brazil, eight days earlier, separate grounds entirely — digital trade, IP, ethanol, deforestation — 25% on all imports of Brazil. Coffee's exempt there too. But its in-transit grace, heading 9903.05.02, runs out at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow, July 29. Anything Brazilian and non-exempt sitting at a port right now is worth 25% more tomorrow morning.

What I'd do today:

1. Call your broker about anything that isn't coffee. Which entries since July 24 took an additional duty, and is anything Brazilian still un-entered.

2. Tell your wholesale accounts before their equipment dealer does. Anyone mid-buildout has a number that moved. Send them the actual headings.

3. Put the citation in your quote template: exempt under HTSUS 9903.05.86, U.S. note 52(b). For the next six months every green quote gets "what about the tariffs," and the answer should be a citation, not a reassurance.

Keeping it honest: the exemption is from these Section 301 actions only — the notice says covered products "shall continue to be subject to antidumping, countervailing or other duties." Nothing here touches Section 232 or AD/CVD. The 10/12.5 split is per economy, not per product, and the EU, Japan, Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan are structured net of MFN, not additive. Machine classification is the importer's call.

One last thing, which is its own small scandal. The Federal Register's official copy renders all 345 annex pages as images. The lines above are unsearchable in the official version of a tariff that's already in force. I read them from USTR's own text-bearing PDF — the only copy a human can actually search.

Source: 91 FR 47318, July 28, 2026. Duties applicable from 12:01 a.m. ET July 24.

FIRST SOURCE · one verified original-source finding, composed for one reader · this edition: coffee roasters — written for the roasters, importers and equipment dealers whose customers will read one headline about tariffs and call them, today, wanting a straight answer