Trump’s threatened tariffs on EU wines and spirits please no one. Not even Americans

As of today, the 200% tariffs “on all wines, Champagne and alcohol products from France and other countries represented by the European Union” announced a few days ago by U.S. President Donald Trump, if the European Union does not remove the 50% tariffs on American whiskies, remain a threat, a bogeyman. Which no one really wants to believe, considering them more of a provocation to then deal on other levels, than anything else. But as we wait to see what will really happen (the “deadline” announced, as of today, is April 2, 2025, ed.), after the obvious messages of great concern launched by the European and Italian wine supply chain (which we reported on here), at ProWein 2025 (which closes today in Düsseldorf), where a small but significant representation of U.S. producers and distributors is also present, we went to try to understand what the air is like on the other side of the Atlantic, in the world’s most important wine market (and first destination for Italy, which in the U.S. realizes almost a quarter of all its exports in value, 1.9 billion euros out of 8.1 in total, in 2024, according to Istat data, analyzed by WineNews). And to understand whether the U.S. industry really thinks that any duties would be something “fantastic for wine and Champagne businesses in the United States”, as said by Trump himself. That there is great tension, in a market like the U.S., already challenged by a difficult economic situation that depresses the consumption of many luxury goods, including wine, can be perceived immediately, also from the fact that, at “open microphones”, no one or almost no one wants to expose themselves and speak.
However, without mincing words, if everyone of course says “wait & see”, let’s wait and see what happens, it becomes crystal clear that duties on European wines the American industry certainly does not see them as an opportunity, on the contrary: with duties at 200% (but also at 50%, like the ones the EU now imposes on U.S. whiskies) everyone is talking about “shutdown”, about the collapse of the industry. Because, as some point out, while perhaps a few more American bottles could also be sold in the immediate term, it must be considered first of all that already more than 30% of U.S. consumption (and thus business) is made up of imported wines (at 70%, roughly, from France and Italy), and then because it is estimated that every dollar of imported European wine generates 6 of economy in the U.S. And losing this economy, for distributors and importers, would mean a resounding collapse in revenue, resulting in cuts in staffing, logistics, and more.
And furthermore, others point out, despite the mark-ups from cellar to shelf, in the various steps (with the price of the wine multiplying at least 6 times from the price paid to the producer to the price at the shelf, and even more so in the away-from-home, along the chain that passes through the American “three-tier-system” made up of importer, distributor and retail) much of the imported wines, Europeans in the lead, serve to cover price ranges quite different from those of American wines, and Californians in the lead, on average much more expensive than the others.
And while some say that the eventual lack of French and Italian wines (which no one would be willing to buy with a 200% tariff) could be made up by the already cheaper wines from Argentina, Chile, Australia, and so on, for others the risk is much greater and structural, as Greg Livengood of Ciatti, one of the world's largest bulk wine brokers, explains to WineNews, “the real risk is that if wine becomes hard to access for American consumers, they might replace it with other beverages. And then getting them back to wine once things return to normal would be neither obvious nor easy”.
This is no small matter, considering that consumption is already declining, partly because as all studies say both older and younger consumers are drinking less alcoholic beverages, looking at both health and wallet. In short, it comes to say, no one in the wine industry likes tariffs, neither Europeans nor Americans, although everyone is aware that little can be done but wait, with the awareness that wine, with its high symbolic as well as economic value, is only a small piece of a much larger puzzle concerning the new geopolitical order being formed in the world, and that it risks being only a “sacrificial victim” in a trade war in which, directly, it has nothing to do with. In the meantime, however, if there are those like Ice president Matteo Zoppas, interviewed by WineNews at the German fair, advising to “wait before alarmism”, remembering that “only those who are sitting at the negotiating table can talk about duties, authoritative candidates, such as Minister Tajani, who leads all diplomacy, and Premier Meloni, who has good relations with the U.S. Administration”, something is moving in the U.S. as well. Where the “Wine Institute”, “the only U.S. organization that advocates for wine at the state, federal and international level”, calls on the U.S. and EU governments to work for a solution to the steel and aluminum tariffs, from which it all started, pointing out in a note that “for nearly 25 years, the Wine Institute has firmly upheld the “Wine for Wine” principle that wine should not be retaliated against in disputes unrelated to the wine itself. The current dispute has never been about wine, and these tariffs will only harm the wine industry as a whole, including farmers, winemakers, distributors, retailers and the millions of people working along the wine supply chain”.
While Diageo, one of the alcoholic beverage giants in the U.S., in recent days, Reuters news agency among others reports, wrote directly to President Donald Trump, referring not to the threatened tariffs on EU products, but to the trade disputes between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, arguing that duties on alcohol would cost the U.S. itself a lot in terms of business and jobs, and suggesting that rather than duties and tariffs, in order to grow the U.S. domestic economy, the use of 100% U.S.-made or partner country raw materials could be incentivized, as well as distillation domestically, the use of U.S.-made bottles, barrels and other materials, and so on. As in, then: everything but tariffs.