President Donald Trump threatened to slap a 200 percent tariff on European wine, champagne, and other alcohol imports on Thursday—the latest shot fired in his erratic global trade war.
Trump announced his threat targeting booze from France and other European Union countries after the bloc unveiled plans to apply duties to a list of American goods in retaliation to the 25 percent global tariffs Trump imposed on steel and aluminium. In a Truth Social post, the commander-in-chief complained the EU’s countermeasure was “nasty.”
“The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky,” Trump wrote. “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.”
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Trump added that the colossal tariffs would be “great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”
On Wednesday, the EU said its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products—including jeans, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and bourbon—would go into effect on April 1.
Officials in Brussels said they had targeted products made in states with Republican senators with the aim of increasing pressure on Trump and his political allies, according to the Financial Times, with one source saying soybeans made the list because they’re grown in Louisiana, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s home state.
Shares in European makers of alcohol products fell after Trump’s threat. LVMH, the luxury goods company that owns the Veuve Clicquot and Moët & Chandon champagne houses, fell by as much as 2.2 percent. Bernard Arnault, LVMH’s CEO and one of the wealthiest men in the world with a net worth of an estimated $170 billion, was among the billionaires who turned up to Trump’s inauguration in January.
“Trump is escalating the trade war he chose to unleash,” Laurent Saint-Martin, the French trade minister, wrote in a post on X, adding: “We will not give in to threats and will always protect our sectors.”
Trump’s complaint about whisky being targeted comes after Lawson Whiting, the CEO of Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman, complained that Canadian provinces are taking “disproportionate” action in response to Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods by pulling U.S. alcohol from store shelves. Whiting said such action is “worse than tariffs.”
The new tariff threats will also likely exacerbate an angry backlash to the Trump administration and its policies in several European countries. Several online groups helping people boycott American goods have been created in Scandinavia—including in Denmark, where Trump has caused fury by talking about taking over Greenland.
Elon Musk, Trump’s head of the Department of Government Efficiency, has also seen sales of vehicles made by his company, Tesla, crash in Europe this year.
