Forced Labor Taints Brazilian Coffee, Say Complaints to U.S. Authorities

Americas|Forced Labor Taints Brazilian Coffee, Say Complaints to U.S. Authorities

Tariffs are not the only threat to business for big companies selling coffee in the United States. On Thursday, a watchdog group petitioned the Trump administration to block coffee imports that it says are produced with forced labor akin to modern-day slavery in Brazil, the world’s largest coffee grower.

The petition to Customs and Border Protection, filed by the nonprofit Coffee Watch, names Starbucks, by far the largest coffee retailer in the country, as well as Nestle, Dunkin’, Illy, McDonald’s and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, the owner of Peet’s, as companies that rely on potentially dubious sources. It asks the Trump administration not to allow distribution of any imports from Brazil that “wholly or in part” rely on human trafficking and forced labor.

“This isn’t about a few bad actors,” Etelle Higonnet, the founder and director of Coffee Watch, said in a statement. “We’re exposing an entrenched system that traps millions in extreme poverty and thousands in outright slavery.”

The request for U.S. action was filed a day after another group, International Rights Advocates, sued Starbucks in federal court on behalf of eight Brazilians who were trafficked and forced to toil in “slavery-like conditions,” said Terry Collingsworth, a human rights lawyer and the founder of the group.

The suit seeks certification as a class action representing thousands of workers who it says have faced the same plight while harvesting coffee for a major Starbucks supplier and regional growers’ cooperative in Brazil called Cooxupé.

“Starbucks needs to be accountable,” Mr. Collingsworth said in an interview, adding that “there is a massive trafficking and forced labor system in Brazil” that the company benefits from.