President Donald Trump escalated his trade war with the European Union on Thursday, threatening 200% tariffs on European wine and Champagne that deepened anxiety among businesses and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Trump’s announcement, in which he called the EU “hostile and abusive,” came a day after the bloc’s leaders unveiled plans to retaliate against a batch of U.S. tariffs that took effect this week by imposing 50% tariffs on imports of U.S. whiskey and several other American products.
“If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, &ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES,” Trump wrote on social media on Thursday.
The EU’s tariff plan came in response to a set of U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum and other related products that took hold on Wednesday.
The 27-nation bloc explained that it would react to America’s steel and aluminum tariffs in two waves: First, with tariffs as high as 50% on U.S. products including Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Kentucky bourbon, which will take effect on April 1; and second, a series of measures in mid-April that would target farm products and industrial goods that are important to Republican districts.
European leaders have made it clear that they would prefer not to enact those measures, and would like to come to an agreement with Trump instead.
“Tariffs are taxes,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, said in a statement Wednesday. But with little progress toward a deal, EU leaders had decided to hit back in politically sensitive product categories, hoping to inflict enough pain to drive Americans to the negotiation table.
The European Union’s trade commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, will have calls with his United States counterparts Friday, a commission representative said. Sefcovic, who oversees trade issues in the bloc, will speak with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative.
The European Commission, which most directly drives trade policy for the economies in the bloc, did not otherwise comment on Trump’s post.
But many European officials had anticipated that Washington might react, and some vowed on Thursday not to cave under that pressure.
“We will not give in to threats,” Laurent Saint-Martin, France’s foreign trade minister, said in a post on the social platform X. Trump “is escalating the trade war he chose to unleash,” he added.
This is not the first time the spirits and alcohol industry has been caught in a trans-Atlantic trade war. Less extreme tariffs were placed on liquor and other alcohol during Trump’s first term, and the industry’s recovery from that hit has been long and grueling.
Back then, the president threatened Champagne with tariffs, but did not follow through.
While it is not clear how much it mattered in that case, Bernard Arnault, France’s richest man and head of the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton luxury empire, is a longtime friend of Trump’s. He attended the president’s recent inauguration.
Arnault’s company is home to brands including Dom Pérignon, Krug and Veuve Clicquot.
This time around, a range of alcohol industry executives have been lobbying in Washington, Brussels and other European capitals to be spared — and have expressed alarm that they are once again caught in the crossfire.
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