Brazil coffee exports to the US settle into a lower gear in 2026

Brazilian coffee bound for its largest buyer shifted into a different gear. Between January and June 2026, average monthly exports to the United States ran at $123.9 million, down 36.6% from the $195.5 million average that held before the break. This is not one bad month — change-point analysis flags January 1, 2026 as the date the series shifted level, and it never moved back.

Before and after

Before the break, monthly shipments averaged above $195 million, a flow that had underwritten a meaningful share of Brazil's coffee revenue from its single largest customer. After January, the average fell to $123.9 million, a gap of roughly $72 million a month in direct comparison. Across six months under the new regime, the cumulative shortfall against the old trend line tops half a billion dollars.

What may have flipped the switch

No cause is confirmed, but three structural hypotheses deserve scrutiny. The first is currency: a stronger Brazilian real early in the year raises the dollar price of Brazilian coffee for American buyers, nudging demand toward competing origins like Colombia and Vietnam. The second is inventory: US roasters may have pulled back replenishment after a stretch of forward buying in 2025, producing a base effect that looks like a drop but is really normalization. The third is logistics — coffee is seasonal, and a harvest shortfall or port delay out of Santos can reshape the shipping cadence without changing the annual total.

What would confirm the new level

What would confirm $123.9 million a month is the new normal, not a temporary trough, is the pattern holding through the second half of the year. Coffee-dependent supply chains — cooperatives in Minas Gerais's Cerrado region, Santos-based exporters, roasters reliant on the US market — would do well to track whether currency pressure persists or American demand is quietly migrating to another origin. A second quarter that repeats the same average would close the case for structural, not statistical.