WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to slap a 200 per cent tariff on wine, cognac and other alcohol imports from Europe, opening a new front in a global trade war that has roiled financial markets and raised recession fears.
Stocks fell on the news, as investors worried that Trump would enact stiffer trade barriers around the world’s largest consumer market. The S&P 500 finished the day more than 10 per cent below its record high reached last month, confirming the benchmark index for US stocks is in a correction.
Trump’s threat came in response to a European Union plan to impose tariffs on American whisky and other products next month – which itself is a reaction to Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports that took effect on Wednesday. The European Commission had no immediate comment on the move.
Canada, a neighbor and close ally that is the biggest aluminium provider to the US, has also announced countermeasures to Trump’s metals tariffs and has taken the dispute to the World Trade Organization. Talks between US and Canadian officials on Thursday failed to produce a breakthrough.
Trump has threatened to impose an array of trade penalties since returning to the White House in January, though he has postponed action on many of them. At an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte later on Thursday, he said he would not back off from reciprocal tariffs he has vowed to impose on all trading partners on Apr 2.
“We’ve been ripped off for years, and we’re not going to be ripped off,” he said.
Alcohol is shaping up to be a key friction point in the brewing trade war.
Some Canadian retailers have pulled American bourbon from their shelves as relations between the two countries have frayed and Trump has threatened to annex that country.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Thursday to discuss the metals tariffs, as well as economic and national security issues, the Canadian officials said.
Following his meeting with Lutnick, Ford told reporters in Washington: “We had a very, very productive meeting … we feel the temperature is being lowered, and we’ve also agreed that we’re going to have another meeting next week.”
LeBlanc said Canadian officials have made clear that they will not reopen dairy provisions of the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, a demand repeatedly made by Trump, who has railed against Canada’s high tariffs on US dairy products. But he said the issue was not discussed with Lutnick on Thursday.
He said it was not particularly helpful to have the tariffs in place in the run up to a review of USMCA.
Many of the EU’s proposed countermeasures, worth 26 billion euros (US$28.31 billion), would apply to products with little more than symbolic value, such as dental floss and bathrobes.
But the proposed 50 per cent duty on US bourbon would be a significant hit for the industry, which has seen exports grow steadily since the United States lifted tariffs Trump imposed during his 2017 to 2021 term in office.
The EU accounted for roughly 40 per cent of all spirits exports in 2023, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a trade group.
Likewise, the United States accounts for 31 per cent of EU wine and spirits exports, according to Eurostat.
Trump’s proposed 200 per cent tax on European alcohol would create further headwinds for producers like Pernod Ricard, which has already cut its sales outlook due to Chinese duties imposed last year.
