Hailey Whitlock, Staff Writer 

On Feb. 10, 2025, President Trump signed a pair of executive orders to impose 25% tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. As stated in the Washington Post, White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro said of the orders, “This isn’t just about trade. It’s about ensuring that America never has to rely on foreign nations for critical industries like steel and aluminum.” On an earnings call the next day, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincy weighed in on his perspective of how this order could impact Coca-Cola. 

Quincy elucidated that the company’s reliance on importing aluminum from Canada could pose a problem, leading to the packaging for canned soda to become more expensive. In response to this price spike, the CEO contemplated a shift to packaging that relies primarily on plastic bottles despite the negative environmental effects. According to CBS, Quincy said on the earnings call, “as it relates to our strategies around ensuring affordability and ensuring consumer demand, if one package suffers some increase in input costs, we continue to have other packaging offerings that will allow us to compete in the affordability space. For example, if aluminum cans become more expensive, we can put more emphasis on PET [plastic] bottles, et cetera.” 

However, this shift to increased plastic use does not work well for environmentalists. As mentioned in the Washington Post, a study carried out in April revealed that Coca-Cola accounts for 11% of branded plastic pollution in the world. Further, in December, Coca-Cola retracted many of its goals towards plastic reduction, instead prioritizing using recycled materials. This deviation, coupled with the company’s new stance towards increasing plastic bottle production, was met with distaste from environmentalists such as Emma Priestland, the global corporate campaigns coordinator for the advocacy group Break Free from Plastic. As reported in the Washington Post, she announced, “Any increase in Coca-Cola’s plastic bottle use will directly harm the environment – as well as the health of their customers.” 

Due to these concerns, Priestland encourages Coca-Cola to focus their efforts on reusable glass bottles to combat increased aluminum costs, stating as said in the Washington Post, “Coca-Cola operates successful reusable packaging systems around the world – this is what they should be doubling down on, not expanding plastic use.” 

Nevertheless, Quincy attempted to calm concerns about the impact the tariffs could have. Fortune reports Quincy stating, “I think we’re in danger of exaggerating the impact of the 25% increase in the aluminum price relative to the total system. It’s not insignificant, but it’s not going to radically change a multi-billion dollar US business.” Despite these comments, the tariffs are likely to increase prices for aluminum, shifting Coca-Cola’s packaging process to cope with these increasing costs while attempting to stabilize prices. As stated in the Washington Post, Quincy said, “Between mitigation of supply chain, sourcing, weights of cans, price increase of the cans at some level potentially, a switch to PET, it’s a manageable problem in the context of the total US business. It’s a cost. It will have to be managed.”