For whom the tariff tolls*

(*Deliberate tautology) with a recipe for cod in chive oil on a parsnip puree

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Secreted away in a dark cupboard under the stairs are five cans of Illy Intenso. They were On Offer at my posh supermarket. News had been filtering to me through the food industry’s press releases that the price of coffee was likely to rocket. So with a vigour I never demonstrated at any time during Covid, I hoarded. I would have bought more stocks. But as it was, I cleaned out the store. And lo! The product is now back and priced £2.25 higher, at £7.25/$9.35 for 250g/9 oz of espresso coffee. Eeek! Am I that addicted to my morning caffeine? Yes. A car won’t move without fuel. Same.

Coffee is obviously not an essential food. But it’s a climate-sensitive crop so its price is going up. And up. Like beef (though cows are obviously not a crop), corn, sugar cane and cocoa, rice, maize and avocados, olives and almonds (take note, you alt-milk people), coffee is a water-intensive crop.

The planet has officially entered a historic drought. This is according to climate experts at Everstream Analytics, a global supply-chain risk management company. We know about the lack of water and its effect on the southern hemisphere. (For people like me who failed geography, that’s Australia, parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Antarctica, even - all those continents south of the Equator.) But did you know significant areas of the US and Europe are now classified ‘hotspots’ and considered ‘of high risk’?

Don’t let news of the appalling recent flooding occurring in unlikely places like Australia, Spain, Portugal, and the Greek islands encourage you to believe that water, scarce or overabundant, is not an issue. Altered rainfalls are causing as much damage to crops as drought.

Paros, the Aegean island post flooding, 3 April, 2025

Food security - the means of having reliable access to enough nutritious, affordable food to sustain us - is under threat from Nature reacting to our activities over long decades. Now a group of senior food industry professionals have written a memo to investors to urge them to examine just how well the food and drink companies they have plunged their money into are structured for “disaster preparedness”.

Understandably, they have elected to remain anonymous. These experts have been meeting in secret for 18 months. They’re not lightweights. Between them they have worked for decades for more than half the UK’s top grocery suppliers. Their communication is about protecting their recipients’ investments, not acting to correct the situation. That’s for the rest of us voters.

“We are releasing this Memo because we have reached a moment of threat to food security like none other we have seen. Yield, quantity, and predictability of supply from many of our most critical sourcing regions is not something we will be able to rely upon over the coming years. The data on degrading soil health, water scarcity, global heating and extreme weather events back up what we are seeing from within the system: an interconnected set of crises [….] Mitigation strategies […] are simply not commensurate with the level of the risk we are facing.”

Just because the UK may be in a state of near collapse, these findings shouldn’t be dismissed as local to the failing nation. Until 2 April and the Rose Garden declaration, we were all part of a global network. Not so much ‘mi casa, tu casa’, it was more ‘mi mundo, tu mundo’. That now is over in terms of universal trade. So we must add to the above The Tariffs, which universally, make no mistake, will increase the cost of food.

‘Baseline’ countries are those being charged by the US government a 10 percent tariff. Lucky lucky. Singapore is one. Not really a food tax concern as it’s mostly vaccines, blood, antisera, toxins and cultures that they export to the US. So after discovering this, in order to give you a rough idea of how your shopping bill will be affected, I’m only focusing on the food exports of the other nations on the list. Brazil: soy beans, corn, meat; Australia: sheep and goat meat; United Kingdom: umm - a little whisky; New Zealand: meat and dairy; Turkey: nuts and dried fruit; Colombia: coffee and, cough, cocaine - not referenced, and tariffed? unlikely; Argentina: soybeans and wine; El Salvador: its coffee, sugar, molasses, and canned tuna comes to the UK not the US, so no US price-hike worries there; United Arab Emirates: no food. It’s mostly desert; and Saudi Arabia: ditto.

‘Worst offenders’ coming in at 20 percent are the EU (do not fret, American friends, about your popularity there: the French do not like anybody), all the way up to 54 percent for China, and include the Falkland Islands. I’m sorry, the Falklands? The price of roasting penguins is soaring? No. The tariff is on the Patagonian toothfish which American fishmongers renamed Chilean sea bass to improve sales. The tariff rises to 49 percent for Cambodia, which the US secretly almost obliterated and left with landmines for paving stones, a country included the same week that 5 year old Ronin was celebrated as the rat which had earned the world record for sniffing out the greatest number of US landmines. The marginally lesser 46 percent is imposed on those incredibly industrious Vietnamese who supply the West (including Target, Walmart, Primark, etc etc) with so much of our cheap clothing which has created for them a sustainable economic structure to keep them independent of China.

Who’s your future friend now, Vietnam? Honestly, USA, talk about shepherding your friends into your enemies’ arms. Do you suppose Trump was aware of Ronald Reagan’s view on tariffs?

If you can get hold of Chilean Sea Bass before it becomes fish beyond price, this is a showcase for it that looks as good (I plate it in a bowl) as it tastes. If you can’t cod loin works just as well.

Serves 4

¼ cup chives from a small bunch cut in 2cm/1in pieces but reserving 2 long stems per serving
⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon for oiling the fish
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
140g/5 oz (2 smallish) white potatoes, peeled and diced
140g/5 oz (2 smallish) parsnips, peeled and diced
60ml/¼ cup milk
salt to taste
1 tablespoon butter
4x170g/6oz Chilean sea bass or cod loin fillets, from the thickest part of the fish

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.

Dump the chives in a food processor. With the motor on, feed in the olive oil in a thin stream to turn the chives into a loose sauce. Season to taste. Strain through a fine sieve into a jug or bowl. (You won’t use all of this but it keeps in the fridge at least a week.)

Put the potatoes, parsnips and milk in a medium saucepan. If necessary, add enough water to just cover the vegetables. Season, cover and simmer over medium heat about 15 minutes till the vegetables are very soft.

Pour the pan contents into a food processor and whizz till they turn into a thick custard sauce consistency, adding more milk if needed. Whisk in the butter and season to taste. Decant back into a clean saucepan to reheat just before plating up if necessary.

Lay the fish in a roasting pan only large enough to fit the fillets. Brush with olive oil and season. Roast in the centre oven until the fish is just barely cooked in the middle, about 8-9 minutes per 2cm/1in thickness but not more as it continues to cook once out of the oven. Remove and keep warm.

Share the parsnip puree across 4 warmed dishes or bowls. Set a fish fillet on top then sprinkle lightly with a little chive oil. Don’t swamp it. Cross over 2 long chives in an artistic up-itself fashion and serve.