Italy, France and Spain are among the top five exporters of wine to the United States. Trump made his threat to Europe’s alcohol industry after the European Union announced a 50% tax on American whiskey expected to take effect on April 1. That duty was unveiled in response to the Trump administration’s tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum.
In France, a 4 billion euro market
Gabriel Picard, who heads the French Federation of Exporters of Wines and Spirits, said 200% tariffs would be “a hammer blow” for France’s industry, whose wine and spirits exports to the U.S. are worth 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) annually.
“With 200% duties, there is no more market,” Picard said.
Still, he understood why European leaders responded to Trump’s initial tariffs.
“There’s no debate about that. We agree that Mr. Trump creates and likes to create contests of strength. We have to adapt to that,” he said.
For Italy, it’s the wine at high-end restaurants
In Italy, the wine industry has called for calm, hoping that negotiators in Brussels and Washington can back down from the growing trade spat.
The US is Italy’s largest wine market, with sales having tripled in value over the past 20 years. Last year, exports grew by nearly 7% to over 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) according to Italy’s main farming lobby Coldiretti.
Strong sales at high-end restaurants, in particular, make the US market difficult to replace, said Piero Mastroberardino, vice president of the national winemakers’ association Federvini.
Mastroberardino’s “Taurasi Radici” red wine, for example, was rated the fifth-best wine in the world in 2023 by Wine Spectator, an American wine and lifestyle magazine. It sells for around $80 a bottle retail in the US, roughly twice how much it costs in Italy, so any tariffs would push it to an “unthinkable price point,” he said.