Tariff War Threatens to Fracture Global Food Trade: Supply Lines

The global food trade that delivers everything from fruit to coffee around the world faces being fractured by the escalating tariff war.

Levies imposed by US President Donald Trump this week include 21% on top cocoa producer Ivory Coast and 46% on No. 2 coffee grower Vietnam. The measures — and retaliatory ones like those from China announced on Friday — highlight the prospect of trade disruption and food becoming more expensive in many countries.

That’s bad news for an intricate global food system providing everyday goods that many people take for granted. In the history of agricultural trade, there hasn’t been a moment before where there were so many goods shipped around the world, according ...