In the southern wine area in France, Trump’s tariff threats are already killing business

Grapes have almost started all over the famous wine area in southern France in Baraem, but the season has already turned into many major producers in Europe.

“We have a worker (a worker) left … because we have not been able to pay him anymore,” said Nadine Orai, who runs Chato Ter Ter Forte, outside Avenon.

“This is one of the job and we have to find some other markets.”

Joffita says US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats are already a disaster for all French producers and American wine consumers.

“I think it will kill the wine market in the United States of America,” said.

Trump Threaten Alcohol producers in Europe who have a 200 percent tariff as part of a bad commercial dispute of Trump itself. It has started with the United States against aluminum and steel, but it now includes cars, auto parts and wine.

“We must have an order in April for the American markets, and today they said they will not order,” Orai told CBC News during a visit to the winery earlier this week. “It is our main importer in California.”

Customs duties are paid by importers when they enter the United States, and since shipments are previously requested and take months to arrive, it is impossible for buyers to know what they will pay or whether customers will be ready to cover additional signs.

Exports decisive

The Château terre Forte produces about 15,000 bottles annually – mostly red – on 25 hectares of chrome farms. Auray says that seventy percent of the spouses wine is exported, and although Canada is actually its largest foreign market, 10 percent that go to California and New York is very important.

She says that the distributor who gave the sale this week was a deep apology, but he said he could not seize the opportunity to be exposed to thousands of French wine bottles that may end expensive than what they planned.

(The importer) said it is sorry for us, and I was sorry for them. They know that their own actions can decrease and die because of this tariff.

Europe exports More than 14 billion dollars of wine and wine to the United States every year. French wine is just over $ 2 billion.

The French industry was already Struggle With global sales on a large scale, resulting from other trade conflicts with countries like China, as well as the effects of climate change and the general decrease in alcohol consumption around the world.

Friday, and The European Union veil A set of support measures for the industry that it was working on for several months, including additional financial assistance to enhance tourism, foreign advertising campaigns and cut the red strip for farmers.

Revenge question

Exactly what is going on in Trump’s mind and his officials of European alcohol products are not certain.

The US President beaten all the European Union imports with a potential tariff of 25 percent, which in theory includes wine. Then, there can be other duties resulting from European revenge.

After the United States imposed duties on European steel and aluminum earlier this month, Trump raised the 200 percent ghost of alcohol if the European Union regained the American whiskey.

The revenge question appeared again this week, after the United States said that all European vehicles will face a 25 percent tariff starting from April 2. European trade officials have left a meeting with Trump officials in the White House despair, saying it seemed at least 20 percent.

Wine producers say, given the unexpected Trump decrees and wrong information, it is impossible to know how they should respond in the coming weeks and months.

“How can you find a strategy for someone who has nothing – because (Trump) does not have a strategy,” Uri said, claiming that she feels that producers live on “Quicksand” in every state of uncertainty.

During his first term as president, Trump imposed 25 percent duties on a selection of smaller goods produced by the European Union, including many wine, as a penalty for European aviation benefits. These sanctions were lifted in 2021, after Joe Biden became president.

Later reasons?

Anne Sobby Alsif, the Paris -based economic expert, says she believes that Trump is using the customs tariff to restore European Union negotiators to the table of bargaining on a separate issue, including laws that regulate how technology giants work in the United States in Europe.

The European Union has strongly followed many anti -monopoly cases against major American technology companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple, on the pretext that these companies have misused their dominant positions, sincere competition and affected consumers. The new laws of the European Union, the Digital Services Law and the Digital Market Law, also tried to apply standards on wrong information and hate speech.

“I think all these aggressive commercial policies (the United States) may be reviewing this technical deal, and it has more suitable conditions for American companies regarding.”

In an attempt to respond against Trump’s tariff measures, Canadian and European governments find themselves linked to a common issue – but not necessarily those that tend to fight together.

“We will fight the American definitions with our reprisal commercial measures that will have the maximum impact in the United States and the minimum effects here in Canada,” Prime Minister Mark Carne said at a press conference on Thursday.

However, in a post on social media later that day, Trump has linked Canadian and European measures anyway.

“If the European Union is working with Canada to cause economic harm in the United States of America, the customs tariff will be largely larger, much larger than the scheme currently, both,” was published.

Looking elsewhere

Some French wine producers have already started a long and boring process to try to find new markets.

Marin Steoffar, with the company of Shambania maker Roger Comet Limir, says his operation, which is not far from the French city of Reims, is one of them.

“We will go to Canada in May, to Calgary and Vancouver … We also have to target other markets and search for opportunities there,” Stoffar told CBC News.

But he added that the opening of new markets is long and often does not pay fruits, especially when the United States is the first international market for French chimphenism.

“The French people are anxious,” said Roland Leskor, deputy of the French National Assembly that represents French citizens abroad in Canada and the United States.

A dual Canadian citizen who has played prominent roles in the deposit and investment fund in Quebec, said that the position of the France government at the present time is to encourage negotiations instead of immediate revenge. Although he admits that he can eventually come to this.

“We need to be firm. We need to be strict. We need to be strong,” said Lecure, during an interview with CBC News in Paris. “But also be careful that if we go to that trade war, we will all lose.”

Lescure CBC told Trump’s trade war, as well as taking off his clothes to Ukrainian President Folodimir Zelinski in the Oval Office and his embrace of Russian accounts about the war in Ukraine, contributed to a calm decline in how the French realize the United States

“Only 20 percent of the French really believe that the United States is their ally,” he said. “This is a big change – I mean, this has changed overnight.”