FACT: Valentine’s Day boxed chocolate prices are up 11.8% this year.

THE NUMBERS: Tariff increases on cacao and chocolate, Jan.-November 2025*

*Most recent data available.

WHAT THEY MEAN: 

Why does your V-Day box of assorted cremes, darks, truffles, and ganache cost so much? Partly it’s an unavoidable natural consequence of last year’s bad weather in West Africa, and partly it’s self-inflicted via tariffs. A look at the chocolate world — trees and farmers, shippers and chocolatiers, retailers and lovers — and the impact of eccentric and ill-judged policy:

Sources, Trade, and Production: Chocolate comes from the cacao tree, a shade-loving evergreen native to the Amazon. About 20 feet high when mature, the tree produces a few dozen green, red, or purple “pods” annually, each weighing about a half kilo and containing 20 to 50 beans. It’s not quite true to say that no chocolate originates in the United States — artisanal Hawaiian and Puerto Rican farmers produce about 100 tons of beans a year —but that’s a tiny fraction of the quarter-million tons American chocolatiers use annually. Most come from West Africa: Cote d’Ivoire grows nearly half of the world’s annual 5.6 million tons of cacao beans and neighboring Ghana adds 0.6 million more, with Ecuador third and Indonesia fourth.

Cacao farmers pluck the pods twice a year, then extract, ferment, and dry the beans to prepare them for sale. The New York Botanical Gardens explain:

“The fruits are cut from the tree and split open with machetes to extract the seeds surrounded by the white pulp. Next, the seeds are put into wooden boxes to ferment for usually three to six days. The fermentation causes the development of the characteristic aroma and flavor of chocolate, and in the breakdown of the white pulp surrounding the seeds. The beans are dried, either in the sun or in ovens, and the remaining pulp is removed.”

American chocolatiers are the world’s fourth-largest buyers (Europeans do more), purchasing 235,000 tons last year, with 82,000 tons from Cote d’Ivoire, another 84,000 tons from Ghana and Ecuador combined, and the rest divided among about 15 other producers around the world. Along with this came 311,000 tons of semi-processed cocoa paste and cocoa butter, with Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Ghana the main sources. All are duty-free under the normal, Congressionally authorized U.S. tariff system. Next step:

“In the chocolate factory, the beans are roasted to further enhance the flavor [ed. note: turning them from “cacao” into “cocoa” beans] and then the seed husk is broken and blown away in a process called winnowing, which leaves only pieces of the embryo called nibs. The nibs are ground into chocolate liquor, which is run through a hydraulic press to yield cocoa butter on one side and cocoa powder (which also contains some cocoa butter) on the other side of the press.” 

The powder goes to drinks, and the “butter” (mixed in various degrees with milk, sugar, etc.) to confections. Compressing the whole tree-to-tongue supply chain, one or two pods go into a chocolate bar (roughly one pod for milk, and two for dark), and a 14-piece assortment needs about five pods. U.S. chocolatiers produce about 2.1 million tons annually, while grocers and retailers import another 755,000 tons, mainly from Canada and Europe.

Prices, Weather, and Tariffs: If this Saturday’s Valentine gift seems especially expensive, you’re not wrong. A Lending Tree study this month found that prices for boxed assortments have jumped by 11.8% on average since last February, and in some cases nearly doubled.

One reason for the spike is natural and unavoidable. Drought and unusual heat in West Africa last year meant trees produced fewer beans. This pushed prices up from $2,000 to $3,000 per ton of beans to above $10,000. The other reason is artificial and self-inflicted: the Trump administration’s April 2 tariff decree imposed 21% tariffs on Ivorian beans, 10% on Ghanaian beans, 32% on Indonesian beans, and 10% on beans from Ecuador. (Again, all were previously duty-free.) On top of this, they added 20% tariffs on European Union confectionery and 31% on Swiss confectionery. Rates have shifted around a lot — a July rewrite of the decree reset them at 15% for the West African and Ecuadoran beans, 19% on the Indonesian butter and paste, and 15% for European and Swiss confectionery — but have been raising costs all year long.

Altogether, from April to November the tariffs put over half a billion dollars’ worth of new expenses into the U.S.’ chocolate supply chain. Averaging by month, that’s an extra $25 million in tariffs on $250 million in cacao and chocolate imports. About three-fifths of the cost fell on U.S. chocolatiers buying beans, paste, and butter to turn into bars, truffles, and kisses. (And on their workers: BLS’s most recent data showed confectionery employment down by 3,500 jobs since January.) Grocers and retailers buying finished confections and powder paid the rest. The financials:

The administration backed off on the beans, paste, and butter tariffs in mid-November, so Ghirardelli and Hershey got some year-end relief. But your Cadbury, Valrhona, Nestle or Lindt box still comes with 15% tacked on.

In sum, the tariff experiment has had some clear results — more costs for chocolatiers, fewer jobs for confectionery workers, and higher prices for couples. To the extent there’s a bright spot: the National Retail Federation’s V-Day forecast — spending up $1.4 billion this year — suggests that couples, if with some regret, have mostly decided to absorb the extra expense rather than scale back. If so, tariffs have imposed a clear cost, but lovers haven’t let it kill the mood.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

Data:

Lending Tree’s chocolate-price survey.

And NRF’s Valentine forecast.

Growers & chocolatiers:

The New York Botanical Garden summarizes the trail, from pod on tree to candy in box.

The World Cocoa Foundation (a non-profit consortium of producers, confectioners, governments, and transport firms) has material on development and sustainability, trade and prices, small-farmer support, and more.

The Ghana Cocoa Board explains Ghana’s cacao industry.

The European Union-funded Sustainable Cocoa program supports labor law and reforestation in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Cameroon.

The Hawaii Chocolate and Cacao Growers Association introduces the U.S. cacao-growing industry.

And San Francisco-based Ghirardelli has chocolate-tasting pro tips.

Some V-Day Chocolate History

Chocolate’s association with sensuality and romance, and the accompanying hints of possible aphrodisiac effects, are old and very durable. The specific tie to Valentine’s Day is originally British. Chocolate-bar inventor and marketing pioneer Richard Cadbury came up with the heart-shaped box as a romantic gift in the 1860s. Cadbury was taking advantage of a much older tradition, which seems to have originated in the Aztec Empire. Here’s Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s account of a banquet with the Aztec emperor Moctezuma in 1521:

“De cuando en cuando le traian en unas copas de oro fino con cierta bebidea del mismo cacao, que decian era para tener accesso con mujeres.”

English translations seem a little euphemistic — one reads “from time to time they brought him a certain drink made from cacao in cups of pure gold, which they said he took when he was going to visit his wives” — but Diaz del Castillo’s original Spanish doesn’t leave many doubts.

As a trade policy sidenote, cacao trees didn’t grow in the Aztec heartland — too dry — and the emperors, a bit like Americans today, got the cacao beans through a picturesque state trading enterprise.  The Florentine Codex (Book 9) says they financed annual merchant expeditions to Maya principalities in modern-day Chiapas and Guatemala, carrying woven cotton clothes, rock crystal earrings, and gold jewelry to exchange for jade, quetzal and spoonbill feathers, and cacao beans.

For the big picture, The True History of Chocolate (Sophia and Michael Coe, 2013) takes you from Aztec nobles — they liked chocolate as a whipped drink, like a cappuccino — through 19th-century innovators Cadbury and Fry to modern mass markets and high-end tasting.

And some science:

Is chocolate really an aphrodisiac? Italian researchers in 2006, having done a sex-life survey of two groups of women in 2006 — one eating a lot of chocolate and the other not — bleakly concluded that “no differences between the two groups were observed.” A more recent look in Southern California, this one with both male and female subjects, got the same result.

But via an earlier PPI Trade Fact, some other scientists reported in 2012 that it might actually, maybe, hold up for supposedly boring vanilla. This study used male lab rodents rather than human subjects, though.

PPI wishes friends and readers a romantic and happy Valentine’s Day, even if it’s a little harder to afford this year.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

FACT: Most Americans disliked higher tariffs a year ago, and few minds have changed since.

THE NUMBERS: CNN/SSRS surveys on Trump tariffs –

CNN/SSRS surveys in March 2025, July 2025, and January 2026.  

WHAT THEY MEAN: 

Pollsters have been pestering Americans about trade and tariffs since the 1950s, but probably never as much as last year. Since the Trump administration’s first tariff decrees — last February 1, a year ago last Sunday — our probably incomplete count finds CNN/SSRS and Washington Post/ABC asking about tariffs three times each, the Pew Center twice, Fox News six times, NYT/Siena three times, the Wall Street Journal four, with Gallup, AP, the Economist and Reuters adding lots more. With their national data has come a gush of previously rare polling on tariff attitudes in individual states. The resulting mass of stats conveys a pretty simple message: Most Americans disliked higher tariffs a year ago, and few minds have changed since.

A summary with national averages, crosstabs, and states –

1. National: National polls suggest that (a) more than 60% of Americans disapprove of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, (b) a bit fewer than 40% support them, and (c) the most recent results look like the earliest ones. The CNN/SSRS figures above are pretty close to the overall average, but see below (“Further Reading”) to compare them with Washington Post/ABC, Fox News, and New York Times/Siena.

2. Crosstabs: Within this broad opposition, polling finds some consistent divisions of opinion. Three especially striking ones (and see “Further Reading” for two more):

Red v. Blue: Democrats nearly unanimously opposes, Republicans strongly but less enthusiastically support, and independents pretty decisively take the “blue” side. Fox News’ January survey, for example, reports opposition at 92%-8% among Democrats and 82%-18% among political independents, while Republicans approve by 71%-28%. At the state level, Bowling Green State’s October Ohio poll has an exceptionally sharp partisan split: within Ohioans’ overall 60%-40% disapproval, Democrats oppose the tariffs 97%-3%, and their independent neighbors oppose 83%-16%, while Republicans support 77%-23%.

Race & Ethnicity: African Americans are most opposed to tariffs, white Americans are most closely divided (though with anti-tariff majorities), and Hispanics are in between. For example, this January’s NYT/Siena poll (which seems to get the friendliest results for the administration) found white Americans opposing tariffs 51%-43%, African Americans 66%-25%, Hispanics 50%-29%, and “others” 63%-32%. Fox, meanwhile, had white Americans “disapproving” 61%-39%, African Americans 74%-26%, and Hispanics 67%-33%. Data on Asian American views is scarcer, but an AP poll last July showed Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders significantly more likely than Americans as a whole to believe tariffs would likely reduce job opportunities and raise prices, and the Pew Center’s April poll found 70%-28% Asian American “disapproval” of tariff increases. (We haven’t found a Native American survey, but try Native Voice One‘s in-depth radio discussion.)

Education: The education gap is a bit narrower, but socially illuminating. January’s NYT/Siena poll finds Americans with college degrees opposing tariffs by a very wide 65%-31% margin, and non-college Americans by a much narrower 48%-42%. The widest gulf is among white Americans: a 50%-43% plurality of non-college white respondents support the administration’s tariffs, while white Americans with college degrees oppose them by 63%-34%. NYT’s (very aggregated) “non-white” respondents are less sharply divided, with “non-college non-white” respondents opposing tariffs by 53%-30% and college degree holders by 72%-20%.

3. States: State polls add depth on regional opinion, and often ask distinctive questions that yield unexpected insights. Three examples (and more below):

New Hampshire: Relative importance of tariffs – The University of New Hampshire’s November poll provides a sense of the priority the public gives tariffs as an economic issue. Overall, 45% of their respondents approved of Mr. Trump’s economic management, while 54% disapproved. Among the “approving” minority, 27% cited tariffs as the most important reason for their good review. This was a higher share than any other issue got, and another 3% added “trade.” But an even larger 38% of the majority “disapprovers” cited tariffs as the most important factor in their opinion. So the New Hampshire public appears to agree that tariffs are very important, but on balance feels they’re important in a bad way.

Ohio: Tariff effects by economic class, business type, and unions – Bowling Green State University has polled Ohio twice, first in April and then in October. This went beyond broad approve/disapprove totals (60% disapproving and 40% approving in October, with 44% “strongly” disapproving and 18% “strongly” approving) to ask about the sort of people, institutions, and businesses who might benefit from tariffs. The answers suggest Ohioans developed an increasingly “un-populist” view of tariff impacts over the year. In April, 42% of respondents thought tariffs would help labor unions; by October, the share had fallen to 34. The share feeling tariffs might help small businesses likewise dropped from 41% to 35%, and those believing tariffs would help “the middle class” dropped from 42% to 36%. Meanwhile, the shares believing tariffs would benefit “the wealthy” and “large corporations” rose from 66% to 73% and from 60% to 67%

Texas: Levels of consensus on family finances, prices, and jobs – A December 2025 poll by the UT/Austin’s Texas Policy Project reports that 52% of respondents believe tariffs “will hurt my family,” while 20% think they will help, and 28% aren’t sure. Perceptions on price impacts were near-consensus: 67% believe tariffs are raising prices for “everyday goods,” while 9% think they’re lowering prices, and 25% weren’t sure. Guesses about job impact were most divided, with 42% feeling that tariffs mean fewer jobs for U.S. workers, while 29% predicted more jobs, and 29% didn’t know.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

Some specialty polls:

AP’s July survey of Asian American views.

Also in July, Equis surveys Hispanic America; 58% “oppose” tariff increases and 31% “support.”

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has public views on America’s broader role in the world — foreign policy, national security and military alliances, and humanitarian work, as well as trade and finance. The survey overall finds a public mood far removed from the Trump administration’s protectionism and confrontational approach to America’s historic allies, and the trade material meshes with the more political polls in showing Democrats and independents moving away from support for trade barriers.

Not a poll, but still illuminating: A Native Voice One radio call-in show features fabric designer Denise Hill (Wahpeton), Montana State Senator Susan Webber (Blackfeet), North Carolina economist Larry Chavis (Lumbee), and business owner Jeff St. Louis (Chippewa) on Native community and business experience with tariffs, including Sen. Webber’s role as lead plaintiff in the Blackfeet Nation’s case against ’emergency’ tariffs on Canadian goods as a treaty violation.

More nationals:

The Washington Post/ABC survey found 64% “disapproving” of Mr. Trump’s tariffs last April, and 34% “approving.” A September follow-up got the same 64%-34% split, and October’s 65%-33% was a little worse.

Fox News’ first survey last April found 58%-33% disapproval. September’s, their third, got 63%-36%, and the sixth, out last week, a statistically identical 63%-37%. To the extent this poll shows some shifting over time, it looks more like “hardening opinion” than “changing views”: 9% were “uncertain” or “don’t know” last April, and none — 0% — this January.

New York Times/Siena uses slightly different words — “support or oppose,” rather than “approve or disapprove.” Their results are modestly friendlier for the administration, but just as stable: in last July’s survey, 55% “opposed” and 40% “supported” tariffs; this January’s split was 55%-38%.

More States

Arizona: Phoenix surveyors Noble Predictive Insights in May found 51% of Arizonans saying tariffs hurt the economy, and 37% that they help.

California: The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC, in San Francisco) reports 72% of Californians oppose new tariffs on imported goods, while 25% support them. This is about the same as the 73%-26% disapproval of Trump’s job performance.

Maine: In April, the University of New Hampshire found a 52%-41% negative result in Maine. The gap wasn’t huge, but disapprovers were much more strongly “con” than approvers were “pro”: 48% of respondents “strongly” disapproved while only 20% “strongly” approved.

Michigan: Tariffs on Canadian goods – In a September poll for the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, 48% of Michiganders thought tariff increases had been bad for the Michigan economy, 28% thought they were good, and 23% weren’t sure or thought there hadn’t been any significant impact. Respondents were particularly alarmed by potential tariffs on Canadian products, with 57% believing this would be bad for the Michigan economy and 19% good.

North Carolina: Personal v. national impact – Elon University’s September poll asked North Carolinians whether they have “experienced a personal positive or negative impact from the Trump administration’s tariffs.” Among their respondents, 46% reported negative impacts and 14% positive, while 40% didn’t notice much either way. Adding to this, a November poll by the John Locke Foundation (an against-the-tide small-government Raleigh think tank) found North Carolinians generally negative, but with more division on potential “national” benefit from tariffs than on personal impact. By 54%-38%, they thought tariffs hurt rather than help the U.S. economy; at home, by 56%-19%, they thought tariffs hurt rather than help their family finances.

South Dakota: An unusual exception, as a November poll done by Mason-Dixon found 49%-44% plurality support for tariffs. South Dakota is a youth-v.-age exception too, as the poll found younger South Dakotans more pro-tariff (50%) than the over-50s (44%).

Wisconsin: Marquette Law School gets 63% disapproving and 37% approving of Mr. Trump’s tariffs in November. This is very close to the 64%-36% disapproval majority of his economic policy in general, and worse than the 57%-43% disapproval of his presidency.

More crosstabs:

Youth v. Age: Polling for decades has found younger Americans more enthusiastic about trade, and less supportive of tariffs than their elders. Mr. Trump’s experiment hasn’t changed this. In CNN/SSRS’s January poll, for example, 18-34-year-olds disapproved of it by 71%-29%. In the grayer tiers, late-career respondents from 50 to 64 disapproved by a smaller 54%-46% margin, and retirement-eligible over-65s by a statistically identical 54%-45%.

Gender: Polling doesn’t indicate a very wide “gender gap” on tariffs, though women generally disapprove more than men. CNN/SSRS, for example, found men disapproving by 59% to 40%, and women by 64%-35%.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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