The warning comes after the EU announces retaliatory tariffs on US goods of $28 billion in response to taxation on iron on aluminum.
US President Donald Trump warns that if the Bullock advances planned tariffs on US whiskey, it will impose 200% tariffs from European Union countries on wine, champagne and other alcoholic products.
The EU has announced $28 billion tariffs on US goods, including 50% collection on US bourbon whiskey. This retaliated Thursday in retaliation after US tariffs were enacted on steel and aluminum imports.
“If this tariff is not removed immediately, the US will soon place a 200% tariff on all wines, champagne and alcoholic products representing France and the other EU.”
He described the EU as “one of the world’s most hostile and abusive tax and customs authorities,” and picked out the 50% levy on our whiskey as “negligible” as “negligible” formed with “the sole purpose of using the United States.”
France responded quickly that it would fight back against tariffs on alcohol.
“It’s important that we as Europeans show who we are and we don’t succumb to these kinds of threats,” French Prime Minister François Bailloux said in a speech at the Trade Forum on Thursday.
French Foreign Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin said in X that the US is expanding the trade war that Trump “chosen to start” and that France is “decided to retaliate.”
Olof Gill, a spokesman for the European Commission responsible for trade issues, urged the US to rescind its steel and aluminum obligations.
EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis held a call to present to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
‘fed up’
If the US imposes a 200% tariff on alcohol imports from the EU, the previously unpaid $15 Italian Prosecco bottle could raise the price to $45. Similarly, European response to Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs means that the cost of a $30 bourbon bottle in Paris could increase to $45.
Trump’s latest tariff threat suggests that even companies standing publicly by his side, such as the French luxury company LVMH, who took part in his inauguration, could be secondary damage.
Their levies raise questions about whether the wider business community is willing to openly challenge a series of trade wars that have hurt stock markets and scared consumers.
Tesla, an electric car manufacturer owned by Elon Musk, one of the president’s biggest ally, wrote to US trade representative Jamieson Greer, urging the US administration to “consider the downstream impacts of certain proposed actions taken to address unfair trade practices.”
Nicholas Ozanam, director of the federation representing French wine and spirit exporters, is known for the acronym FEVS, and said exporters are “fed up with being systematically sacrificed for issues that are unrelated to us.”
In the US, Chris Swanger, head of the Distillation Spirits Council, calls the EU’s plans “very disappointing,” indicating that it will be a hit when the industry is facing a “slowdown” in its home market.
Trump’s trade war aims to Canada, Mexico and China under the pretext that it’s not enough to cut fentanyl smuggling and illegal immigration to the US.
He aims for certain products such as steel, aluminum, copper, and more.
Uncertainty over Trump’s trade plans and concerns that recession could roar is shaking financial markets.
François Villroy des Garhau, governor of the French central bank, said the actions of the Trump administration would cause more damage to the US economy.
“It was a tragedy for the American economy at first,” he said.