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The EU will arrive in the United States with 25% prices on a range of goods in response to its tasks on aluminum and steel, but exempted bourbon after a heavy lobbying of France, Italy and Ireland, which seek to protect their alcohol alcohol industries.
In addition to whiskey, after consultations with Member States, wine and dairy products have also been removed from the proposal, according to a list of countermeasures obtained by the Financial Times.
Other products, including orange juice, poultry and soy price from 10% to 25% imposed.
The prices will take effect between April 15 and December 1, depending on the product. Soy and almonds were delayed until December 1, after farmers opposed the former, used to feed animals.
US President Donald Trump had threatened 200% of European alcohol withdrawal if Bourbon was targeted.
EU’s commerce commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, speaking before sending the list to governments on Monday, said that he had listened to their requests. Consequently, the block reaction would affect less than the initial value of 26 billion euros in targeted American imports after Washington imposed 25% levies on all imports of steel and aluminum.
“We are not in the field of Tit-For-Tat or Penny for Penny,” said Šefčovič.
EU governments should approve the list changed on Wednesday.
Trump has since announced that he would introduce 20% of additional European exports.
The president of the Ursula von der Leyen commission said that Brussels had proposed several times in the United States an agreement to eliminate all prices on industrial goods, in particular cars, the addition of Europe was “always ready for a good deal, so we keep it on the table”.
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,” said Robert Habeck before a meeting of the EU trade ministers in Luxembourg on Monday. “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 weak position.”
“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 will be relieved if the change is confirmed. He 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.
The French wine and spirits sector would have been the most affected by the threatened prices, 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.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni plans to go to Washington “in the coming weeks” as part of the EU efforts to persuade the US government to retreat the 20%prices, his Minister of Foreign Affairs said on Monday.
Antonio Tajani said that while Rome was aimed at a “price-zero price” agreement between the United States and the EU, as an intermediate not, he hoped that Washington would reduce his so-called reciprocal rates on European products at 10%.
American spirits industry has also Press the White House To exempt spirits on a global scale of all prices, stressing that 86% of American exports went to countries that had eliminated prices on American alcoholic products.
“The American sector of spirits was the model of success for fair trade and reciprocal for decades,” said the president and chief executive to the distilled council 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
