Trump's 200% EU Wine Tariff Won't Save American Winemakers

Forbes

24-03-2025

Trump leading a champagne toast (Photo by)
If you're hoping to pluck a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet off the wine list to impress clients tonight, or simply want to pick up a modest Côtes du Rhône on your way home, you may want to take a long look at your receipt. It could be one of the last times European wines come at anything close to a reasonable price in the U.S.
President Trump's proposal of a 200% tariff on all wine and spirits imported from the European Union has been positioned as a patriotic reset—a way to boost American-made wine by squeezing out its competition. "Great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.," he wrote on social media, despite, of course, Champagne only being produced in France. But behind the all-caps posturing lies a dangerously flawed premise: that isolating American wine from the global market will somehow strengthen it.
It won't. Not for producers. Not for restaurants. Not for retailers. And certainly not for the consumer.
Why, you ask? Let's start with the idea that these tariffs would benefit American winemakers. On the surface, it's textbook protectionism: make European wine unaffordable, and buyers will pivot to U.S. bottles. But the wine industry doesn't operate in a vacuum. Importers, distributors, and restaurant wine directors rely on a diverse portfolio of bottles to run sustainable businesses. Strip out the entire EU's offering overnight, and you're not left with more room for domestic producers—you're left with less stability.
Take a mid-sized distributor in Illinois who imports Beaujolais, a few Californian Pinots, and perhaps a small Oregon pét-nat for natural wine shops. These distributors, which make up the majority of the American distribution network altogether, rely on the breadth of their catalogue to stay afloat. If half of their imports are suddenly slapped with 200% duties, their profit margins collapse. And if that distributor folds, so does a vital pipeline for U.S. producers trying to get their wines on lists and shelves.
Worse, tariffs like these can strain the very relationships that make wine work. Hospitality teams build wine lists that balance Old and New World, budget-friendly and premium, familiar and experimental. Telling a sommelier in Chicago or Charleston that every bottle of grower Champagne they've carefully selected now costs triple means one of two things: they're forced to pass the cost on to customers, or gut the list. Neither is sustainable.
Oenophile consumers aren't prone to swapping out Bordeaux for Sonoma just because the price tag shifts, either. Instead, they recoil. They down-trade. They drink less wine overall. And that hits everyone—including American producers.
The reality on the ground is that the U.S. wine industry is already under strain. Domestic demand has softened as younger consumers pivot to other drinks entirely, vineyard oversupply has led to grape gluts in California (with some growers ripping out vines altogether), and climate volatility has battered harvests—2020's wildfires destroyed millions in inventory and smoke-tainted fruit alone, only worsened by the wildfires last month. Adding economic disruption on top of environmental and generational headwinds is not just careless; it's strategically nonsensical.
It also ignores history. During the last major tariff scare in 2019, when the Trump administration imposed a 25% tax on French, Spanish, UK and German still wines under 14% alcohol, importers were forced to eat costs or pull shipments entirely. Many cut staff. Others shut down entirely. The American wine industry didn't magically flourish in that gap—it suffered. Hence the tariffs' 2021 suspension.
These new tariffs wouldn't just hit Burgundy and Barolo, either. They'd apply to 'low-tier' European bottles too—the $12 Picpoul de Pinet, the $15 bottle of Montepulciano, the reliable Prosecco keeping your local oyster bar afloat. These are the bottles that underpin everyday wine drinking in America. And if they vanish or skyrocket in price, it's not high-end Napa that fills the void—it's more likely canned, chemical-laden cocktails, beer, or nothing at all.
And that's the risk assuming there's no retaliation. In reality, if we slap tariffs on EU wine, the EU will almost certainly retaliate on American goods. Bourbon. Whiskey. U.S. wine. Because none of this ever plays out in a vacuum.
U.S. producers, retailers, sommeliers, and consumers all operate within a fragile, interdependent ecosystem. To imagine that American can 'win' by shouting over it, taxing it into silence, or walling it off with tariffs is not only wrong, but economically suicidal.
What the American wine industry needs right now is investment, resilience, and reach—not artificial advantage. We need better infrastructure for distribution. We need meaningful sustainability support as climate change reshapes agriculture. We need policies that encourage younger consumers to explore wine, not penalise them for trying to buy it. And yes, we need our wines to stand proudly alongside the best of Europe—not because Europe has been pushed off the shelf, but because we earned our place next to them.
That's how you grow an industry. Not through tariffs. Through excellence.