PEORIA, Ill. – The owner of a Peoria coffee shop says tariffs imposed by the Trump administration would make it difficult to run his business.
Intuition Coffee + Juice owner Ty Paluska was able to relay his concerns in person on Friday morning to 17th District Congressman Eric Sorensen (D-Moline) at his shop.
Paluska says for just the coffee alone, the cost of obtaining it could go up significantly with tariffs.
“We’re looking at, between tariffs and just the cost of coffee already going up this year, 30-35% increase,” Paluska said.
Paluska says it’s not just coffee that would be affected by tariffs. He says it could affect the cost of tea, glassware, packaging, cleaning supplies, and more.
Paluska says tariffs would also impact the cost of other items, such as tea, packaging, glassware, and cleaning supplies.
Sorensen says businesses such as Intuition, who rely on imports into the United States for supplies, would be caught in a bad situation with tariffs.
“We can’t grow coffee in the United States, it has to be imported. And so now we have to ask the question, ‘Why are we tariffing coffee?’,” Sorensen said. “Why are we putting that extra burden on somebody like Ty at Intuition who, this is his life’s work.”
Sorensen was not completely against tariffs, saying targeted tariffs can work to bring jobs and manufacturing to the United States.
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