Europe’s Wine, Butter Sellers Rush to US to Avoid Trump Tariffs
(Bloomberg) — French wines and Irish butter are being shipped to the US in ever-higher volumes as the European Union gears up for what could be a a protracted rift with one of its main trade partners.
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US President Donald Trump has complained that the bloc treats his country “very unfairly,” citing the EU’s trade surplus with America as a reason for punitive measures. Earlier this month, he slapped 25% tariffs on all global imports of steel and aluminum, with the EU vowing “firm and proportionate countermeasures.”
On Thursday, the US leader said he would announce reciprocal tariffs, without offering any details. That stands to drag food and wine into the fray.
For Europe’s farm sector, disruptions in trade with a market vital for its higher-end goods like cheese and wine, would be a another blow as it struggles with volatile weather and high energy prices. For Americans, it would mean shelling out more for items they view as an affordable splurge.
READ: Super Bowl Guacamole Would Get Even More Expensive Under Tariffs
Even though shipments are still flowing smoothly for now, food exports have picked up as European producers look to unload supplies ahead of any future trade hurdles.
In the 11 months through November, some 236,000 tons of EU dairy products were exported to the US — the highest annual volume in European Commission data going back to 2010. Wine shipments to the US in November, the month Trump was voted in, were 18% higher than the same time a year ago, with trade group CEEV attributing the jump to nervous importers in the US stocking up in anticipation.
The problem is that Trump’s “just very inconsistent of what he’s imposing and what levels of tariffs he’s imposing,” said Sandro Schulz, a protein pricing analyst at price-reporting service Expana. The gap between announcement and implementation “tends to be fairly short.”
The US is the second-largest export market, just behind the UK, for agri-food sales from the EU, with some €27 billion ($28.1 billion) worth of goods exported there in 2023. During his first term, Trump had targeted Spanish olives, German wine and Irish whiskeys, souring trade ties.
This time too, “the risks of US tariffs have been well signposted in the run up to the presidential elections,” said John Lancaster, head of EMEA dairy and food consulting at StoneX. “Based on past form, European dairy producers would have known that they were likely high on the potential target list.”
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