A person walks next to Valentine’s Day decorations on a stoop, in New York City, U.S., January 16, 2026. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/File Photo
Some of the traditional trappings of Valentine's Day will be a lot tougher on your wallet this year, and according to a Friday report from Axios, Donald Trump's tariffs have played a significant part in causing that.
In the report, Axios detailed the recent price fluctuation roller-coaster ride that his inflicted the global trade of cocoa beans. In recent years, the beans, famously the signature ingredient in chocolate candies, reached record high prices driven by a thinning supply. In May, prices peaked at around $10,000 per metric ton, well in excess of the average price throughout the 2010s, which typically ranged between $2,500 and $3,000.
Now, however, with supply issues fading, the price of cocoa beans is falling precipitously, with a 30 percent decline in the past month alone. One might expect this to be good news for Valentine's Day and the price of a box of chocolates, but unfortunately, that will not be the case. While consumer prices for chocolate are expected to reflect the recent plunge in cocoa bean prices eventually, for the time being and with Valentine's only a day away, companies are still working with product made record-high purchases had to be made.
"[The] chocolate you'll find on the shelves now was manufactured with cocoa that was purchased at near record-high prices," Axios explained. "Companies like Mondelez, the maker of Cadbury and Toblerone, increased prices multiple times to offset the higher cocoa costs."
"Valentine's Day 2026 is still feeling the aftershocks of the cocoa crisis," Francisco Martin-Rayo, CEO of commodities advisory firm, Helios AI, told Axios.
Making this issue worse for some companies are Trump's tariffs, which have been causing consumer prices to climb for a wide range of products in the last year. Speaking with investors recently, Hershey, the largest and most recognizable chocolate manufacturer in the U.S., admitted that Trump's tariffs had driven up its consumer costs, and will continue to do so as it works through materials purchased last year.
While the Trump administration exempted cocoa beans from tariffs in November to address mounting affordability woes, like the easy supply chain issues, this move will not be reflected on store shelves for quite a while. Mondelez CEO Dirk Van de Put said that the easing of issues driving up chocolate prices should start to bring the cost of a chocolate bar of box of Valentine's candies down sometime next year.