Coca-Cola Company announces new plans to raise the prices of its softdrink products like Coca-Cola, as freight costs and taxes on raw materials increases in light of the Trump tariff.
The average consumers will once again be facing threats of price hikes, this time on the world's favorite soda drink - Coca-Cola.
In an announcement made last week, James Quincey, Chief Executive of the Atlanta, Georgia-based consumer product company, said that the prices for some of their carbonated products (particularly Coke) are expected to increase.
The one to blame is the cost upsurge of raw materials such as metals, which are used to manufacture Coca-Cola in cans, for example. This, in turn, was brought by the additional duties placed on these imported materials.
"The tariffs on the metals, it's one of many factors [that] cost us to go out in the middle of the year and announce the price increase," Quincey said.
He added, "Less trade and more tariffs will mean less economic growth in the end and that will affect [Coca-Cola]."
Reports are also indicating that the rising costs of labor is an additional factor for the soda firm to raise the numbers.
During an investor's meeting, Quincey raised up the issue of tariffs, calling it a "disruptive" factor that poses the adverse effect on the way the people consume basic goods, such as their Coke drinks.
"Clearly it's disruptive for us," Quincey said, "It's disruptive for our customers."
A previous report indicated steep levies stamped on imported Chinese goods worth USD$200 billion. Consumer goods like food, tobacco, and alcohol were the prime products that were put in the line of fire. However, minerals such as copper, nickel, and aluminum also suffered the new Trump trade policies.
China, on the other hand, retaliated with equal tariff rates on US exports coming towards its harbors. Just a while ago, Beijing slapped a total of 50 percent tax on pork products from the US.
It turns out that Coca-Cola won't be the only brand to increase the prices of its products. Other companies making beverages like beer are also having concerns about the cost of aluminum and other metals.
Breweries, for one, are also using these materials to make canned variants of their drinks.
"The aluminum tariff alone could cost the industry $347.7 million and result in the loss of more than 20,000 jobs nationwide," Jim McGreevy of the Beer Institute told Fox News.
This price burden will eventually be handed down to the consumers.
