Bottles of French and Italian wine are displayed on a shelf at grocery store on March 13, in San Anselmo, Calif. AFP-Yonhap
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to slap a 200 percent 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 percent below its record high reached last month, confirming the benchmark index for U.S. stocks is in a correction.
Trump's threat came in response to a European Union plan to impose tariffs on American whiskey and other products next month — which itself is a reaction to Trump's 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum 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 aluminum provider to the U.S., has also announced countermeasures to Trump's metals tariffs and has taken the dispute to the World Trade Organization.
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 April 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.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News he was meeting with Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Thursday to discuss the tariffs, and the U.S. was looking for some concessions from Canada.
"You have to remember, Canada exists, leaning on our economy," he said. "Why are we doing all this business in Canada if they're not respectful, if they're not thankful, and they don't want to do it?"
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."
Many of the EU's proposed countermeasures, worth 26 billion euros ($28.31 billion) in all, would apply to products that have little more than symbolic value, such as dental floss and bathrobes.
But the proposed 50 percent duty on U.S. 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 2017-2021 term in office.
The EU accounted for roughly 40 percent 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 percent of EU wine and spirits exports, according to Eurostat.
Trump's proposed 200 percent 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.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., March 13. UPI-Yonhap
Industry calls for more toasts, fewer tariffs
Industry officials on both sides of the Atlantic urged their leaders to de-escalate.
"This cycle of tit-for-tat retaliation must end now!" said spiritsEurope, an industry trade group.
Trump says tariffs are a crucial tool to revitalize U.S. industries that have withered due to decades of globalization, and he has stacked his administration with officials who agree with those views.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he was not worried about recent Wall Street volatility because the Trump administration is focused on a longer-term transformation of the U.S. economy.
He warned that the EU has more to lose in a trade war, as it relies more on exports to the United States.
"I would counsel these government leaders that they are on the losing side of this argument economically," he said on CNBC.
Trump's barrage of threats has spooked investors, businesses and consumers. Producers of jets, coffee, clothing, autos and packaged foods are among the many businesses scrambling to assess their operations as Trump's actions threaten international supply chains.
Even Tesla, owned by Trump adviser Elon Musk, argued in a letter to U.S. trade officials that the trade war could make it a target for retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.
"As a U.S. manufacturer and exporter, Tesla encourages USTR to consider the downstream impacts of certain proposed actions taken to address unfair trade practices," the electric automaker said in a letter dated Tuesday.
Some economists say the uncertainty threatens the health of the U.S. economy and raises the risk of recession. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found that 70 percent of Americans expect Trump's tariffs to make regular purchases more expensive.
Trump said his alcohol tariffs would help domestic producers. But U.S. importers and distributors said it would lead to lost sales, layoffs and shuttered businesses.
Eric Faber, president of Cutting Edge Selections, a wine distributor in Cincinnati, said U.S. wineries would not be able to fill the gap if Trump's proposed tariffs made European wines unaffordable. The higher prices would also hurt restaurants and distributors that U.S. wineries rely on to reach customers, he said.
"It would be absolutely catastrophic," he said. (Reuters)