“Halt all EU wine shipments!” An urgent call from the U.S. Wine Trade Alliance. #tariffs

For today’s post, I have copied and pasted the morning’s communiqué from the U.S. Wine Trade Alliance. Be sure to sign up for their email newsletter for updates and breaking news about tariffs. For what it’s worth, the more calls we make, letters and emails we send, the more our representatives will be aware of the pain this is already causing. Colleagues in red states, especially, should reach out to their congresspeople and senators. Stay strong, everyone!

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We strongly advise American companies to HALT ALL SHIPMENTS OF WINE, SPIRITS, & BEER FROM THE EU. The current risk of tariffs is too high.

As you know, President Trump issued a threat of 200% tariffs on all alcohol from the EU, in response to planned EU tariffs on U.S. Bourbon and other products. The EU announcement would see tariffs enacted on April 1. We believe it possible the U.S. could immediately retaliate with tariffs on April 2, using a never-before-used section of trade law.

We are working diligently to ensure any tariff enactment would have a goods-on-the-water exception, but the flat reality is right now there is no guarantee of an exception for goods in transit at the time of a tariff enactment.

The disruption this would cause is not lost on us, and we do not take this recommendation lightly. To be clear, no federal register notice on this issue has yet been published, and it is possible either the U.S. or EU could pivot away from the current tit-for-tat, but at this moment there is a risk that goods could be tariffed if they arrive in the U.S. after the beginning of April.

This is not a fight that we are responsible for, but it is a fight we are in nonetheless. We are speaking with agency staff and members of Congress every day, and will follow up with more information as soon as we have it.

Sincerely,

Ben Aneff