Donald Trump threatened to bring the customs of European alcohol to 200% if the European Union did not withdraw its Bourbon tax project.
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Champagne, European wines and spirits in the viewfinder of Donald Trump. The American president threatens to impose 200% customs duties if the EU does not return to the 50% which will be imposed in early April on American products such as whiskey and wine, decided in retaliation for American customs barriers on steel and aluminum. In the meantime, representatives of French viticulture say they are dismayed.
The House of Champagne Veuve Fourny has exported its specialty. It sends bottles to around thirty countries and the United States represents 20% of its turnover, then Charles Fourny is stunned. “I find it hard to believe it. It is a threat. I will say that it is a bit like saying that it is forbidden to sell champagnes in the United States.”
If the American president is acting, it will be the closure of the first export market for French viticulture. “To be very clear, it represents 4 billion euros in invoicing. It’s major. It is about 600,000 direct and indirect jobs, so it is a colossal deflagration”explains Gabriel Picard President of the French Federation of Exporters of Wine and Spirits.
It wants Donald Trump, of course, but also to the European Commission which chose to tax American alcohols. “Wine producers in the United States are the Democratic States, notably California. The producer state of Bourbon in the United States is Kentucky with Senator McConnell, opposing Trump within the Republicans. So, attacking Bourbon or American wines today, it is a major tactical error.” This is why Gabriel Picard calls Brussels to return to his decision and tax another sector, such as that of new technologies.
