Drinks sector hoping to avoid big costs

Some of Europe's leading alcoholic drinks producers have issued a sigh of relief after the European Union's list of retaliatory tariffs against the United States left out US bourbon, meaning Irish whiskey and wines from Italy and France going across the Atlantic Ocean are also likely to be exempt.

The list of goods to be affected, believed to be worth around 21 billion euros ($23.2 billion), was approved on Wednesday. Hungary, an outlier from the majority EU opinion on many topics, did not back the tariffs on goods as diverse as dental floss, yachts, poultry, and almonds.

"They (the EU tariffs) can be suspended at any time should the US agree to a fair and balanced negotiated outcome," European Commission trade spokesperson Olof Gill said on social media platform X.

According to the Irish Trading Whiskey investment website, in 2024 whiskey exports rose 13 percent in value, to a total of 1 billion euros, with shipments to the US up 11 percent, accounting for 40 percent of all exports.

During the EU's deliberations, conscious of the importance of this market and the potential consequences, Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Harris said he "questioned the strategic relevance" of tariffs being put on bourbon.

French newspaper Le Monde reported that the US is France's fourth-largest export market, and in 2024, around 2.4 billion euros' worth of what it called "grape wines" were sold to the US, along with more than 1.5 billion euros' worth of drinks such as brandy. Tariffs, it was feared, could mean exports taking a hit of around 800 million euros, prompting France's Prime Minister Francois Bayrou to call the inclusion of bourbon "a misstep".

One champagne manufacturer quoted by The Guardian newspaper said it would have been "game over" for the US market if the 200 percent tariffs that Trump threatened in a social media post on March 13 had come into force.

But Germany's Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck said he was unhappy at the way some countries had put the interests of their individual industries ahead of the greater European good.

The global markets' reaction to the trade turbulence, he said, showed Europe was in a strong position and the US was weak, making decisive unified action all the more important.

"If every country is counted individually, and we have a problem here with red wine and there with whiskey and pistachios, then it will all come to nothing," he warned.

Ahead of the list's confirmation, a European Commission spokesperson declined to answer specific questions around bourbon, a product whose manufacturing process gives it protected status in the EU, in the way Irish whiskey and French cognac are protected in the US.

"We are taking every step to ensure that the measures we come forward with achieve their intended purpose, which is to allow for the minimum amount of damage here in the EU while providing us with the maximum amount of leverage in our negotiations," they said. "We don't want tariffs. We want to avoid them."

julian@mail.chinadailyuk.com