Shea nuts drying within the solar in northern Ghana, the supply of a product that helps small U.S. companies and worldwide commerce networks.
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For Imani-Ligon Chambers, a 21-year-old Black American school pupil from Manhattan, managing her frizzy, curly hair has all the time been a problem — made tougher by her nut allergy symptoms, which rule out widespread hair oils like coconut and almond. That’s why she depends on merchandise made with shea butter, a longtime staple in Black hair care.
“Hair merchandise containing shea butter are the one ray of hope for my frizzy curly hair,” Chambers mentioned.
From lip balms handy lotions and candles, shea butter reveals up throughout beauty and hair care labels. However exports of shea nuts have been tightening for the reason that starting of the yr, with Nigeria turning into the most recent nation to announce a brief six-month embargo in August 2025.
The shea nut comes from an indigenous African plant grown naturally throughout the “Shea Belt,” a area that stretches from Senegal to Sudan. International locations identified for high-quality natural shea butter manufacturing embrace Nigeria, Mali, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Uganda. Six of them — excluding Niger, Benin and Uganda — have both imposed or proposed shea nut export bans by 2026.
“I’ve been utilizing shea butter for hair since I had my large chop in sixth grade,” Chambers mentioned. She and her mom found shea butter years in the past, and now her mom additionally blends it with mango butter as a moisturizer for her grandfather’s eczema.
“Shea butter can be costly. The final time I purchased it was virtually a yr in the past, and it got here in a small tub that value round $13 to $20,” Chambers mentioned. “There’s a place uptown on a hundred and twenty fifth Road that sells it, and some different locations in New York has it in retailer. I do know quite a lot of Black girls use shea butter hair merchandise to model their hair, and I’m upset that these political and financial tensions will have an effect on not simply me however the folks I care about and love.”
Customers like Chambers, with restricted alternate options, will seemingly really feel the sharpest affect of the embargo as demand for shea stays inelastic. Analysts warn that the burden could fall disproportionately on communities of coloration within the U.S.
Items are exported to the worldwide market when their world worth is larger than home costs. Banning the export of shea nuts would push home costs down and create a provide shock for nations that import the uncooked materials. With restricted substitutes and low manufacturing prices, the inelastic demand for shea nuts is more likely to drive up world costs.
“Whereas home purchasers in West African nations stand to profit probably the most from this embargo, native producers will endure an enormous loss as they may’ve offered it at a a lot larger worth on the worldwide market,” mentioned Dr. Omar Robles, a Harvard-trained economist who teaches enterprise at Marymount Manhattan Faculty. “Though it will result in extra jobs and alternatives from manufacturing the merchandise of shea nuts domestically, will probably be inefficient as they’re forgoing the upper income that may’ve are available in from exporting the product within the first place.”
Whereas wavering U.S. tariffs are already taking an enormous toll in the marketplace, small companies are those most frequently uncared for within the course of. Brooklyn Herborium is an natural skincare line and apothecary positioned on Columbia Road and Prospect Avenue in Brooklyn.
Based in 2011 by herbalists Molly Watman and Emma Graves, the enterprise was born from their want to craft a holistic house the place herbs may thrive and profit future generations. What started as hormone-induced paranoia following motherhood led Watman to analysis advanced label terminologies and in the end create the apothecary with Graves.
Through the years, Brooklyn Herborium has grown to determine companions in Hong Kong and China, importing its merchandise.
“We’re not alone on this boat, however it’s difficult — particularly for small companies — to alter trusted relationships constructed with folks we’ve labored with for a few years which can be exhausting to interchange,” Watman informed Brooklyn Paper.
Brooklyn Herborium makes use of shea nuts from Butyrospermum parkii bushes in Ghana for merchandise like its bumble lip balm. Ghana has not but imposed an export ban however introduced in July 2025 that it’s going to part one in by 2026. For over a decade, Watman and Graves have sourced shea nuts from a girls’s collective in northern Ghana, paying $6 to $8 per pound. Now, the companions are in talks to navigate the altering commerce local weather.
Each the buying and selling companions are in communication in the intervening time, making an attempt to determine a strategy to work collectively amidst the political tensions and financial obstacles.
“There are different nations rising shea nuts the place the local weather is hospitable. However the actual query is, are they pesticide- and chemical-free, and are they ethically farmed? We’re in a discovery course of to search out various sources of shea nuts with out compromising our values,” Watman mentioned.
The U.S. imposed a 30% tariff on South African imports final month, and officers from South Africa not too long ago traveled to Washington for additional talks.
As commerce companions negotiate tariff charges, entrepreneurs like Watman are bracing for an unsure future in world commerce.
“I don’t wish to increase our costs; I need our merchandise to be inexpensive,” Watman mentioned. “However I do know my value of manufacturing has gone up. All my suppliers are dealing with points, and our orders from overseas have plunged. I’ve to pay my staff, and these tariffs are impacting our potential to entry inexpensive, good-quality substances.”
“We merely don’t have the local weather or the setting to develop shea bushes within the U.S.,” Dr. Robles added. “As small companies are going to be left negotiating a a lot smaller fraction of the whole provide that’s being imported to the nation in comparison with the corporates, switching to alternate options would be the best choice for them in gentle of the tariffs.”
