Bananas, coffee and tariffs...

[The Tradition]

Saw a lot of talk about bananas and coffee in one of the tariffs thread, and I thought this is a perfect example of WHY we might want tariffs, without junking up the already junked-up other thread.

But to be clear: We are perfectly capable of producing our own coffee and bananas!

Absolutely wonderful coffee is grown in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Bananas can also be grown on those islands, and also in very southern regions of the continental U.S. too.

But anyone interested in growing American coffee or bananas can't compete against foreign growers unless there is a tariff to balance things out, and give domestic producers a fair playing field.

So, the small production we have of these crops generally goes to local farmer's markets or specialty retailers, and is not scaled for mass production. Growers tend to be small operations, and focused on niche varieties of beans and fruits in order to charge enough to survive.

What if we HAD to grow our own coffee and bananas due to some sort of war or natural disaster? We don't have the means to satisfy the nation's demand for these staples of American life today, but that could easily be changed if we had the will to do it.

Discuss.

 

[Bonerfarts]

How long until these theoretical US banana trees start producing fruit?

 

[NorthernHawkeye]

In before @lucas80 asserts that no one will be able to pick the bananas because the current president is enforcing immigration laws.

 

[Colonoscopy]

Saw a lot of talk about bananas and coffee in one of the tariffs thread, and I thought this is a perfect example of WHY we might want tariffs, without junking up the already junked-up other thread.

But to be clear: We are perfectly capable of producing our own coffee and bananas!

Absolutely wonderful coffee is grown in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Bananas can also be grown on those islands, but also in very southern regions of the continental U.S. too.

But anyone interested in growing American coffee or bananas can't compete against foreign growers unless there is a tariff to balance things out, and give domestic producers a fair playing field.

So, the small production we have of these crops generally goes to local farmer's markets or specialty retailers, and is not scaled for mass production. Growers tend to be small operations, and focused on niche varieties of beans and fruits in order to charge enough to survive.

What if we HAD to grow our own coffee and bananas due to some sort of war or natural disaster? We don't have the means to satisfy the nation's demand for these staples of American life today, but that could easily be changed if we had the will to do it.

Discuss.

To me it'd depend on quality of product, cost to produce, and quality/need of jobs generated.

And I'm not sure I'd try to kick off the process via tariff. (Although may implement them eventually)

 

[The Tradition]

How long until these theoretical US banana trees start producing fruit?

A banana tree typically takes around 15 to 18 months after planting to produce its first fruit, and then the plant dies after fruiting, with new plants sprouting from the same roots.

 

[Torg]

A banana tree typically takes around 15 to 18 months after planting to produce its first fruit, and then the plant dies after fruiting, with new plants sprouting from the same roots.

It takes 4 years for a coffee plant to produce a crop

 

[The Tradition]

It takes 4 years for a coffee plant to produce a crop

No time to waste! Start planting!

 

[bcherod]

You don’t get much from one banana tree, and no, we cannot do our own coffee.

You have to do a little more research.

I have fruit trees. One of each is simply not enough for me, as a single person.

So yeah, keep thinking we can do our own.

Meanwhile, have you checked the price of our coffee from Hawaii? Real Kona not mixed with anything is three times the price of coffee from Guatemala.

If you need to understand this, I can refer you to coffee research pages.

You clearly either don’t drink coffee nor eat bananas.

 

[The Tradition]

To me it'd depend on quality of product, cost to produce, and quality/need of jobs generated.

And I'm not sure I'd try to kick off the process via tariff. (Although may implement them eventually)

Coffee is harder than bananas in terms of required altitude, temperature, water, the terrain is more difficult to work and harvesting is more labor intensive. But Hawaiian coffee is excellent quality.

You can grow bananas pretty much anywhere there's a patch of dirt in Florida, but no one does it commercially because bananas from Costa Rica are so cheap.

 

[The Tradition]

You don’t get much from one banana tree, and no, we cannot do our own coffee.

You have to do a little more research.

I have fruit trees. One of each is simply not enough for me, as a single person.

So yeah, keep thinking we can do our own.

Meanwhile, have you checked the price of our coffee from Hawaii? Real Kona not mixed with anything is three times the price of coffee from Guatemala.

If you need to understand this, I can refer you to coffee research pages.

You clearly either don’t drink coffee nor eat bananas.

We could scale up production in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The reasons we don't is we can't compete against foreign producers.

It's the same reason that pineapple plantations don't really exist in Hawaii anymore. Central America grows them much more cheaply.

 

[Bonerfarts]

A banana tree typically takes around 15 to 18 months after planting to produce its first fruit, and then the plant dies after fruiting, with new plants sprouting from the same roots.

Sounds like a pyramid scheme, I’m out.

 

[sober_teacher]

Coffee is harder than bananas in terms of required altitude, temperature, water, the terrain is more difficult to work and harvesting is more labor intensive. But Hawaiian coffee is excellent quality.

You can grow bananas pretty much anywhere there's a patch of dirt in Florida, but no one does it commercially because bananas from Costa Rica are so cheap.

We don't have nearly enough land to grow all of the staples you suggest in the amounts we'd need, at prices that would be affordable.

I don't object to targeted tariffs - it's the broad, blanket way Trump is using them that most of us object to.

 

[hawkeyetraveler]

Coffee is harder than bananas in terms of required altitude, temperature, water, the terrain is more difficult to work and harvesting is more labor intensive. But Hawaiian coffee is excellent quality.

You can grow bananas pretty much anywhere there's a patch of dirt in Florida, but no one does it commercially because bananas from Costa Rica are so cheap.

Why do you want to grow bananas here when we can get them cheap from somewhere else? What would be the point if we aren’t that far off from full employment and we suck at growing cheap bananas?

Wouldn’t it be better to train workers to do higher end jobs that help usher in a brighter future for our country? Especially since it would literally cost us more money to get US bananas?

You haven’t thought this through… by the way this concept is rudimentary economics 101. It’s basically been proven a bazillion times since WW2 in the real world.

 

[The Tradition]

We don't have nearly enough land to grow all of the staples you suggest in the amounts we'd need, at prices that would be affordable.

Florida has a LOT more land than Costa Rica. And with all the citrus diseases, an alternate crop would be great.

But not bananas when the ones from Costa Rica cost $0.39 a pound....

 

[ThorneStockton]

You could definitely increase domestic production via tariffs. We'd all just have to get used to paying far more. People usually want a good reason for paying more.

 

[sober_teacher]

Florida has a LOT more land than Costa Rica. And with all the citrus diseases, an alternate crop would be great.

But not bananas when the ones from Costa Rica cost $0.39 a pound....

Not all of it is well-suited to bananas. Especially when it tends to get hit by hurricanes every couple of years.

 

[The Tradition]

Wouldn’t it be better to train workers to do higher end jobs that help usher in a brighter future for our country? Especially since it would literally cost us more money to get US bananas?

The entire point is we've become a service industry country. That's a problem.

We don't actually make anything here, and increasingly, we don't actually grow everything that we need.

If bananas and coffee start costing so much that people can't afford it, there will be blood in the streets. All because we didn't want to compete with Central and South America.

 

[The Tradition]

Not all of it is well-suited to bananas. Especially when it tends to get hit by hurricanes every couple of years.

Bananas would grow GREAT around Lake O, but sugar is sweeter so they grow that instead.

 

[sober_teacher]

The entire point is we've become a service industry country. That's a problem.

We don't actually make anything here, and increasingly, we don't actually grow everything that we need.

If bananas and coffee start costing so much that people can't afford it, there will be blood in the streets. All because we didn't want to compete with Central and South America.

All because Trump started a fight that didn't need to be fought.

 

[sober_teacher]

Bananas would grow GREAT around Lake O, but sugar is sweeter so they grow that instead.

Yup, and if they grew bananas there, they'd have to find somewhere else to grow sugar, and so on and so on.

 

[OutbackBowl2017]

What are two of three things that make me crap my brains out when eaten together for $300? Alex.

 

[The Tradition]

Yup, and if they grew bananas there, they'd have to find somewhere else to grow sugar, and so on and so on.

Seriously, they'd grow great on all the citrus land that farmers are struggling to keep with the battle against citrus greening. But again, bananas aren't the solution when they're so cheap off the ship.

 

[sober_teacher]

Seriously, they'd grow great on all the citrus land that farmers are struggling to keep with the battle against citrus greening. But again, bananas aren't the solution when they're so cheap off the ship.

And something else gets bumped down the road elsewhere. You get that right? There's not enough arable, suitable land for all the crops you'd like to bring back stateside.

 

[goldmom]

How long until these theoretical US banana trees start producing fruit?

Many Floridians can grow their own. Don’t know what the rest of you are gonna do. 🍌

 

[mnole03]

We could scale up production in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The reasons we don't is we can't compete against foreign producers.

We’ll just use all that cheap Hawaiian land?

You should work for the Trump Administration.

 

[bcherod]

We could scale up production in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The reasons we don't is we can't compete against foreign producers.

It's the same reason that pineapple plantations don't really exist in Hawaii anymore. Central America grows them much more cheaply.

Are you kidding me? You’re obviously unfamiliar with the Dole plantations in Hawaii.

You really need to educate yourself regarding food and crops.

 

[bcherod]

Florida has a LOT more land than Costa Rica. And with all the citrus diseases, an alternate crop would be great.

But not bananas when the ones from Costa Rica cost $0.39 a pound....

And what are going to do with the land that is already occupied by citrus groves and other crops? Cattle, pigs?

Are you going to rehome them to try and grow bananas and pineapples?

Costa Rica has a lot better growing conditions than Florida. Clearly you’re neither a gardener nor a grower.

I’d live for you go and spouting off your ideas to a garden club. You’d be laughed out of the room. Ludicrous. Simply ludicrous.

That’s like someone claiming round up ready corn is just a hybrid.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

We could scale up production in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The reasons we don't is we can't compete against foreign producers.

It's the same reason that pineapple plantations don't really exist in Hawaii anymore. Central America grows them much more cheaply.

Or we could cancel stupid tariffs and go to cheap imports

 

[luvmyhawks]

JFC. The right trying to justify any of this nonsense is just... absurd.

 

[Gimmered]

FWIW, I did the math here, it would take ~600,000 acres to grow the 5 million metric tons of bananas we import each year. I can't imagine we couldn't carve that out of Florida to plant a 39 cent per pound crop.

That same land would hold about 900 million solar panels. Probably not profitable at all.

 

[Obviously Oblivious]

OP strong candidate now for advisory positions in Trump WH. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[ericram]

Saw a lot of talk about bananas and coffee in one of the tariffs thread, and I thought this is a perfect example of WHY we might want tariffs, without junking up the already junked-up other thread.

But to be clear: We are perfectly capable of producing our own coffee and bananas!

Absolutely wonderful coffee is grown in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Bananas can also be grown on those islands, and also in very southern regions of the continental U.S. too.

But anyone interested in growing American coffee or bananas can't compete against foreign growers unless there is a tariff to balance things out, and give domestic producers a fair playing field.

So, the small production we have of these crops generally goes to local farmer's markets or specialty retailers, and is not scaled for mass production. Growers tend to be small operations, and focused on niche varieties of beans and fruits in order to charge enough to survive.

What if we HAD to grow our own coffee and bananas due to some sort of war or natural disaster? We don't have the means to satisfy the nation's demand for these staples of American life today, but that could easily be changed if we had the will to do it.

Discuss.

Hawaii is some of the most expensive real estate in the USA. Tell me also how Hawaii is get produce enough coffee for sale to meet demand. Also have you ever bought coffee beans from Hawaii? It ain't cheap.

 

[hawkeyetraveler]

The entire point is we've become a service industry country. That's a problem.

We don't actually make anything here, and increasingly, we don't actually grow everything that we need.

If bananas and coffee start costing so much that people can't afford it, there will be blood in the streets. All because we didn't want to compete with Central and South America.

tl;dr Reagan is rolling in his grave over the sheer stupidity of what Trump has done. I hope you will read and watch to the end.

Being a service and tech/information oriented economy is not, in and of itself, a problem. We just need good partners that we can rely on to produce the goods we need more cheaply than we can make them here. We don’t need to make maple syrup here if Canada can do it more efficiently. Same with tee shirts, bananas, coffee and many many other staple products.

Where it becomes an issue is if we get held hostage on products that are critical for national security - pharmaceuticals, chipsets and the like. Or where it impacts our ability to provide gainful employment in jobs we want in this country (complex manufacturing). Or where our ability to compete is stolen by IP theft. Things that are absolutely critical cannot solely be in the hands of an adversary like China and they damn well should not be stealing it from us.

In select cases like that we should be willing to subsidize domestic production or take other actions to protect our interests. The GOP accepts subsidies for farmers/oil & gas and we should accept it for those types of products too.

So here’s the rub: the problem has been China all along. No one disputes that. They have us over a barrel on some of these critical products (or they will if they invade Taiwan). But they do the same thing to every other country on Earth. Which would have made it practical for us to partner with our natural allies to address the China issue. We could have all worked to isolate them economically. We could have all worked to create a free trade zone and agree to invest together in those products. Trump could have been a hero if he was laser focused and specifically worked to address that issue like the guy in the video below.

Instead Trump thinks any type of trade deficit is bad and tariffed everything pissing off every country on earth. All of them save maybe Israel. And he did it over stuff we can never efficiently make here cheaply and don’t even need to. Allies that we have had for generations. Islands that don’t even have any people. So now, instead of building consensus against China he has literally encouraged long standing allies to work with China against us. Japan and Korea hate China, but they are working on free trade together because they cannot trust us. This is a complete realignment of geopolitics and it does not isolate China, it encourages their bad behavior; and it isolates us. How do you not see that? How completely obtuse are you?

If you want to fight a school yard bully, you don’t pick a fight with every other kid on the playground. That’s the dumbest possible option. You rally the other kids, confront the bully and punch him in his god damned mouth. Look, virtually every business leader and every economists is in violent agreement on this. It was the biggest economic and geopolitical mistake I have seen since the 1930’s!

But hey, what do I know…I’ve only been at this for thirty years in international business. So here is a guy that used to be a hero to the GOP before you all joined a cult. Please listen to his logic. It is sound and it was literally the basis for America’s success for decades. It is also exactly what I have been trying to tell you over my posts, exactly the same.

 

[NorthernHawkeye]

tl;dr Reagan is rolling in his grave over the sheer stupidity of what Trump has done. I hope you will read and watch to the end.

Being a service and tech/information oriented economy is not, in and of itself, a problem. We just need good partners that we can rely on to produce the goods we need more cheaply than we can make them here. We don’t need to make maple syrup here if Canada can do it more efficiently. Same with tee shirts, bananas, coffee and many many other staple products.

Where it becomes an issue is if we get held hostage on products that are critical for national security - pharmaceuticals, chipsets and the like. Or where it impacts our ability to provide gainful employment in jobs we want in this country (complex manufacturing). Or where our ability to compete is stolen by IP theft. Things that are absolutely critical cannot solely be in the hands of an adversary like China and they damn well should not be stealing it from us.

In select cases like that we should be willing to subsidize domestic production or take other actions to protect our interests. The GOP accepts subsidies for farmers/oil & gas and we should accept it for those types of products too.

So here’s the rub: the problem has been China all along. No one disputes that. They have us over a barrel on some of these critical products (or they will if they invade Taiwan). But they do the same thing to every other country on Earth. Which would have made it practical for us to partner with our natural allies to address the China issue. We could have all worked to isolate them economically. We could have all worked to create a free trade zone and agree to invest together in those products. Trump could have been a hero if he was laser focused and specifically worked to address that issue like the guy in the video below.

Instead Trump thinks any type of trade deficit is bad and tariffed everything pissing off every country on earth. All of them save maybe Israel. And he did it over stuff we can never efficiently make here cheaply and don’t even need to. Allies that we have had for generations. Islands that don’t even have any people. So now, instead of building consensus against China he has literally encouraged long standing allies to work with China against us. Japan and Korea hate China, but they are working on free trade together because they cannot trust us. This is a complete realignment of geopolitics and it does not isolate China, it encourages their bad behavior; and it isolates us. How do you not see that? How completely obtuse are you?

If you want to fight a school yard bully, you don’t pick a fight with every other kid on the playground. That’s the dumbest possible option. You rally the other kids, confront the bully and punch him in his god damned mouth. Look, virtually every business leader and every economists is in violent agreement on this. It was the biggest economic and geopolitical mistake I have seen since the 1930’s!

But hey, what do I know…I’ve only been at this for thirty years in international business. So here is a guy that used to be a hero to the GOP before you all joined a cult. Please listen to his logic. It is sound and it was literally the basis for America’s success for decades. It is also exactly what I have been trying to tell you over my posts, exactly the same.

View embedded media

You do a fine job with many of your posts. I listen to a variety of sources, some of which call out many of the very things you've addressed.

A couple of things. Are you aware of why they listed some of these obscure islands? It's been explained. Secondly, your utilization of the word "cult". Are you willing to admit that both dems and reps have a certain number of dead-enders?

 

[hawkeyetraveler]

You do a fine job with many of your posts. I listen to a variety of sources, some of which call out many of the very things you've addressed.

A couple of things. Are you aware of why they listed some of these obscure islands? It's been explained. Secondly, your utilization of the word "cult". Are you willing to admit that both dems and reps have a certain number of dead-enders?

It is fair to say I was being snarky about the islands and no I actually missed the logic there - what I thought happened was they used ISO codes related to internet suffixes (.us for the United States, etc) but I am not sure why they did what they did. Would love to understand the logic, because it looked incompetent from my vantage point.

Yes, I agree there are far left dems that are completely off the rails. I have called that out from time to time. Look for my posts on Tesla dealer attacks or the Trump assassination attempt. Both are horrible. I don’t necessarily think it is cult like because they are not following a single leader who causes their opinion to shift 100% when the leader changes his mind. But some are kind of like an anti-cult. If Trump does something they are immediately against it and vice-versa. And not everything Trump does is bad policy. Just 99% of it 😜.

But, and it is a big but, it sure seems to me that there are far less far lefties off the deep end than there are MAGA’s in Trump’s embrace. Like orders of magnitude less. Having said that I have always admitted a very strong dislike for Trump myself - so I have to admit I’m biased and that can skew my perception. It sure as hell did during election season.

 

[Doodads and Hoohah]

Another excellent well thought out thread from Trad.

 

[TarponSpringsNole]

In before @lucas80 asserts that no one will be able to pick the bananas because the current president is enforcing immigration laws.

 

[NorthernHawkeye]

Wait until the GOP Karens can’t get fresh strawberries at Publix and start ranting on Facebook.

Immigrants take jobs companies don’t want to pay a fair wage for to keep the cost of strawberries and chicken wings low.

What's Trump's plan, Northern? How is he putting his mass deportations together? Who is paying for it, and who is doing the work? You? Seems like a job you'd get off on, rousting women and kids into vans. You also realize there are laws allowing people to stay here while their claims are processed? Are you deporting all of them, too? You going to pick the strawberries that will rot in the fields, or work the dairies all over Iowa that employ illegals?
We had a shot at comprehensive reform designed by one of the most conservative members of the Senate, but your guy tanked it.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

What exactly is the problem with getting bananas year round for .50/lb?

 

[SI_NYC]

Saw a lot of talk about bananas and coffee in one of the tariffs thread, and I thought this is a perfect example of WHY we might want tariffs, without junking up the already junked-up other thread.

But to be clear: We are perfectly capable of producing our own coffee and bananas!

Absolutely wonderful coffee is grown in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Bananas can also be grown on those islands, and also in very southern regions of the continental U.S. too.

But anyone interested in growing American coffee or bananas can't compete against foreign growers unless there is a tariff to balance things out, and give domestic producers a fair playing field.

So, the small production we have of these crops generally goes to local farmer's markets or specialty retailers, and is not scaled for mass production. Growers tend to be small operations, and focused on niche varieties of beans and fruits in order to charge enough to survive.

What if we HAD to grow our own coffee and bananas due to some sort of war or natural disaster? We don't have the means to satisfy the nation's demand for these staples of American life today, but that could easily be changed if we had the will to do it.

Discuss.

Here lies the problem in that Trump has no plan outside of companies and nations begging him to exclude them for favors in return. Trump is not doing this for the betterment of the country—he’s doing it for kickbacks and bribes. If he was truly interested in ‘reciprocal tariffs’ the tariffs would be closer to 2% not 20-35%+. Once you realize it’s all a grift, you may just stop defending Trump’s bs.