The White House is trying to address the phenomenon of shoppers sounding like their grandparents reminiscing about when a gallon of milk was a nickel. Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order to scrap his “reciprocal” tariffs on coffee, beef, avocados, nuts, tomatoes, and dozens of other grocery staples in a bid to lower food prices that have been squeezing consumers.

The order exempts hundreds of products from the sweeping tariffs that Trump imposed on almost every US trading partner. It comes after the administration negotiated framework deals with Ecuador, Guatemala, Argentina, and El Salvador this week that include lowering tariffs on products that can’t be grown or produced at a sufficient scale in the US, including coffee and bananas.

Political analysts note…that these moves come a week after Democrats won big in several local elections after running campaigns focused on affordability.

Prices are bananas

Economists say tariffs can play a role in making grocery staples pricier. The average price of bananas—a tropical import previously considered reliably dirt cheap compared to other fruit—was up 7% in September from 12 months prior. Punishing import duties on the agricultural powerhouse Brazil were also significant:

• The price of coffee rose 19% in the year leading up to September. Adverse weather conditions contributed, as did a 50% tariff on Brazil’s exports, which accounted for about a third of the US’ supply as of 2023.
• Beef prices shot up 50% over the same period, according to government data. Cattle shortages in the US were largely to blame, but with imports needed to supplement, there was a 76% tariff rate on cow meat from Brazil, the world’s largest beef exporter.

Because yesterday’s order will remove Trump’s reciprocal tariffs aimed at tackling trade imbalances, it won’t impact additional tariffs levied over Trump’s objection to Brazil’s prosecution of its former president, and will therefore reduce tariffs on Brazilian farm products by just 10%, an administration official told Bloomberg.

But…the administration denies that tariffs are causing ballooning grocery prices, instead blaming spending by the Biden administration. Still, officials say they hope that lowering some tariffs will allow American businesses to pass on savings to shoppers.—SK

Walmart’s CEO of over a decade to retire. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon plans to step down early next year, handing over the reins of the country’s biggest retailer and private employer to John Furner. Furner currently heads up Walmart’s US business after starting at the chain in 1993 as an hourly associate. McMillon, who took up the top job in 2014, led Walmart as it upped its e-commerce game to better compete with Amazon and as it dealt with the pandemic. The company gained $576 billion in market capitalization during his tenure, according to the Wall Street Journal. The retail giant is set to report its latest earnings on Thursday.

Switzerland scores 15% tariff in trade deal with US. The two countries said yesterday that they’d reached a deal to slash the Matterhorn-high 39% tariffs Trump unexpectedly slapped on Swiss goods like chocolate, gold, and pharmaceuticals, down to the 15% level that EU countries are also facing. Under the terms of the agreement, Switzerland will invest $200 billion in the US by the end of 2028. The deal came together after billionaire Swiss executives bearing an engraved gold bar and Rolex clock came to Washington to personally lobby President Trump after government negotiations stalled.

Bankruptcy judge approves $7.4 billion Purdue Pharma opioid settlement. The judge said he would sign off on the deal next week, which will allow the OxyContin-maker to exit bankruptcy and settle lawsuits over the opioid’s impact against the company and the Sackler family that owns it. The decision on the latest plan comes after the Supreme Court rejected an earlier version because it let the Sackler family entirely off the hook for future opioid-related claims, even though some plaintiffs had not agreed to the settlement. In the new version, the Sacklers will contribute up to $7 billion over 15 years, and creditors who do not consent to the deal can still sue in civil court.—AR

Hold on to your croissant. After a nearly nine-year hiatus, short-form video platform Vine is back. A new version of the app, called diVine, has resurrected a slew of old clips and creator profiles in an attempt to relive some of that mid-2010s magic, six seconds at a time.

DiVine intervention: It’s not a full resuscitation. There were terabytes of data withering in the Vine archives, but they weren’t easily accessible, so diVine founder Evan Henshaw-Plath reconstructed what he could. He told TechCrunch that diVine will have about 150,000–200,000 Vine videos from ~60,000 creators (for comparison, old Vine had a few million creators).

DiVine users will also be able to post new videos, and creators can remove any of their old videos that got reposted.

Back in the loop: Henshaw-Plath, an original Twitter employee, has financial backing from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s nonprofit “and Other Stuff.” Dorsey, who shut down Vine in 2017, previously said that was his “biggest regret.” Current Twitter X owner Elon Musk announced in August that he also planned to revive Vine, but that hasn’t happened so far.

Slop-free zone: DiVine will screen for and block generative AI content, so the app can focus on human-powered connection. Cat soap opera lovers will have to get their fix elsewhere.—BC