Duties: first pact between Usa and Uk. While Eu thinks about counterduties (wine and whiskey too)

Billions of dollars of increase of Uk imports from the Usa, estimated at 5 billion, particularly in agriculture, beef, alcoholic drinks (the exact word pronounced by Trump is “ethanol”, ed), and other products realized by “our great farmers”, but also products of chemistry, and industry, the elimination by the Uk of “non-tariff barriers”, and not only, with details which will be sharpened, and decided in the next weeks (and the universal duty at 10% which, anyway, would remain also on Uk products): this is the trade agreement announced, in the last minutes, by American president Donald Trump, as anticipated by the same Usa president in the last hours via social, where it was explicitly wished that the agreement with the Uk, a historically allied company, and friend of the Usa, and today headed by Keir Starmer, who thanked Trump in connection, underlining how it is a historical moment for the two countries, and for world economy, and that, this agreement is only the first one of a long series, with the Usa available to negotiate. A path, that between the Usa and the Uk (waiting to understand the real details, still to be sharpened in the next weeks, ed) which, as hoped, will be the beginning of a real distension about the theme duties, which is not taken for granted.
So that, the European Union, which today pays duties at 10% on all wares exporting to the Usa, after the freezing of tariffs at 20% of the last weeks by Trump, on the one hand, it continues to negotiate with the Usa, on the other hand, it announces an appeal to Wto (World Trade Organization) about reciprocal tariffs, and, at the meantime, it started a public consultation (open until 2025, June, 10th) about wares coming from the Usa, which, eventually, the Eu could hit with duties if negotiations wouldn’t lead to results. A very wide list, including all the sectors, including that of American agri-food with identity products for the States such as the much discussed whiskey, but also wines, in addition to beef and pork meats, seeds, and so on. So, on the one hand, it is negotiation, and, on the other hand, there is the preparation to important countermeasures. Currently, explains a note by Eu Commission, “379 billion euros of Eu exports towards the Usa (or 70% of Eu exports towards the Usa) are subjected to new duties (including suspended duties), since the new Us administration took office. Us duties are already increasing the costs for businesses, suffocating the growth, fostering the inflation, and increasing economic uncertainty”. “Duties are already having a negative impact on global economies. The Eu maintains its full commitment in finding results negotiated with the Usa. We think that good affairs can be made at the advantage of consumers, and businesses on both the shores of the Atlantic. At the meantime, we continue to prepare to all the possibilities, and the consultation started today will help us in this necessary work”, said president of Eu Commission Ursula Von Der Leyen. Obviously, also Italian and European wine world, as always, looks to the evolution of the situation, with the eyes opened to the consequences of any action and counterreaction in the Usa, which are the first foreign market of reference. “We reaffirm our absolute contrariety and worry compared to the insertion of wine – and, of American whiskey – in the list of Eu counterduties. European wine export towards the Usa is worth almost 5 billion euros per year, of which 2 billion for Italy, that coming from overseas, it arrives to, at least, 318 million euros: the disparity of risk appears to be quite eloquent. In this way, one risks – said Lamberto Frescobaldi, president of Unione Italiana Vini (Uiv) – an “escalation to be lost” which puts at risk an economy, which, in Italy, is worth 1.1% of Gdp, and a trade balance active for over 7.5 billion euros. We ask for good sense, that demonstrated by our Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who, since the beginning, agreed with our reasons, represented in European headquarters”.