The EU will remove the bourbon from its list of reprisals against the United States, according to a senior official, after a heavy launch of France, Italy and Ireland, which seek to protect their alcohol alcohol industries.
The vice-president of the European Commission, Stéphane Séjénéné, said that “there should be good news in the coming hours” on France Inter Radio on Monday, and that “the message was (by the way) the main economic success” for the wine and spirits sector.
US President Donald Trump had threatened to impose 200% rates on Wine and EU spirits after Brussels warned that he would include Bourbon as part of 26 billion euros in goods which he would strike with rights of reprisals in response to Washington samples on imports of steel and aluminum.
The American president has since announced that he would present 20% additional deductions from all European exports.
The president of the Ursula von der Leyen commission said that Brussels had proposed on several occasions in the United States an agreement to eliminate all prices on industrial goods, in particular cars, adding that Europe was “always ready for a good deal, so we keep it on the table”.
The EU has prepared a list of reprisals, but Von Der Leyen said that the block preferred a “negotiated solution”.
The German Minister of the Economy has criticized the lobbying of other Member States on behalf of their drinks industries, saying that they should join the Commission, which leads to trade policy.
“The stock markets are already collapsing and the damage could become even more important. It is therefore important … to act clearly and decisively and prudently, which means realizing that we are in a strong position. America is in a position of weakness,” said Robert Habeck before a meeting of the EU trade ministers in Luxembourg on Monday.
“If each country is counted individually and we have a problem here with red wine and there with whiskey and pistachios, then all that will come back to anything,” he added.
But the European drinks industry, which is already faced with a substantial blow to exports of Trump’s reference rates in the midst of a low world market and commercial problems with China, will be relieved if the change is confirmed.
The French wine and spirits sector should be the most affected by the prices announced, according to the FEVs of the association of exporters of wine and spirits in the country. He thinks that the levies will lead to a drop of 1.6 billion euros in exports from the whole EU, half that in France, creating a “enormous impact” on employment and the economy.
“This confrontation rate only creates losers, both in Europe and in the United States … Our American counterparts, with whom we have worked for decades, also transmit this message to the American authorities,” the president of FEVS, Gabriel Picard said.
European governments also disagree on the extent to which they should support the industries affected by prices.
While Spain announced billions of support last week, the French Minister for the Budget Amélie de Montchalin excluded such measures.
“We are not going to adopt a” anything “approach,” she said, referring to the measures deployed during the Pandemic COVID-19.
The Minister of the Spanish economy, Carlos Cuerpo, told journalists that he would raise the question at the meeting. Madrid wants pricing income, which mainly go to the EU budget, are used.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni plans to go to Washington “in the coming weeks” as part of the EU efforts to persuade the US administration to retreat the 20%tariffs, his Minister of Foreign Affairs said on Monday.
Antonio Tajani said that while Rome was aimed at a “tariff-zero rate” agreement between the United States and the EU, as an intermediary, he hoped that the United States would reduce its so-called reciprocal tariffs on European goods to 10%.
The American spirits industry also put pressure on the White House to exempt spirits around the world from all prices, stressing that 86% of American exports went to countries that had eliminated prices on American alcoholic products.
“The American spirits sector was the model of success for fair and reciprocal trade for decades,” said the president and chief executive officer of the distilled council of the Spirits Council Chris Swonger last week.
In 2018, the EU imposed a 25% reprisal rate on American whiskey, which plunged exports to the 20% block, from $ 552 million to $ 440 million between 2018 and 2021.
Since the prices have been suspended, exports of American whiskey to the EU jumped almost 60%, from $ 439 million in 2021 to $ 699 million in 2024, according to the commercial group.
Additional reports from Amy Kazmin to Rome and Alice Hancock in Brussels