Another day, another potential tariff change. The latest from the White House: to address Americans’ rising grocery bills, President Trump wants to carve out tariff exemptions for some kitchen staples.

There aren’t many details yet, but officials have noted that exemptions might include foods like coffee and bananas from four countries: Ecuador, Argentina, El Salvador and Guatemala. Will these meaningfully lower costs for American consumers?

Noah Namowicz, COO of Cafe Imports in Minneapolis, has a lot of tariffs to keep tabs on. 

“Each country has its own unique rate,” Namowicz said.

From Indonesia to Ethiopia to Peru, the company imports from something like 30 different countries, including some on the exemption list.

“Open our computers every day and just figure out how we bring nice coffees to market,” Namowicz said.

He said any tariff relief helps. But it’s likely not going to have a huge impact on prices. The U.S. imports about a third of its beans from Brazil, a country not on the exemption list. The tax rate for imports from Brazil is 50%. Meanwhile, coffee costs have been rising because of extreme weather.

“So yeah, there’d need to be a couple other things that would probably have to happen for the coffee market to actually come down,” Namowicz said.

Ricky Volpe, a professor of agribusiness at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, said a tariff exemption is welcome news because it could help slow inflation. But, he said, “It’s not likely to bring food prices down.”

There are so many other factors that influence the price of food, like cost of labor, transportation and warehousing. Plus, there are other tariffs.

“Pretty much every piece of capital that is necessary to get food from the fields to the supermarket is incredibly steel intensive,” Volpe said

Farm equipment, processing machines, storage shelves … the list goes on.

Luis Ribera, an agriculture economist at Texas A&M University, said there’s also the issue of policy perception: whether businesses think the exemptions will stick. 

“Policy can change from one hour to the next,” Ribera said.

Uncertainty comes with costs. For importers here and also for exporters abroad. Namowicz said his growers are worried.

“Will my product be bought? Do I have a home for my coffee?” Namowicz said.

If growers of coffee or bananas or other imports shrink their crop or shut down, it could squeeze supply.