President Donald Trump’s tariff blitz is shaking up the global booze market, with the European Union eyeing payback that could hit American-made spirits right where it hurts.
The booze business is unlike any other. It’s highly regulated, globally entangled and steeped in the cultural identities of the countries that produce their beloved spirits.
Last year, the U.S. exported $2.4 billion in hard alcohol, according to figures provided by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a Washington-based trade association. Based on 2024 trade data, the European Union is America’s top client, importing approximately $1.2 billion in U.S. spirits.
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Those figures are up about 60% from 2021, largely due to the suspension of the European Union’s 25% retaliatory tariffs on American-made whiskey that were put into place in 2018.
The EU singled out bourbon in 2018 because the product is distinctly American, according to a congressional resolution, and it hit back at Kentucky, the home state of a Trump Republican ally, Sen. Mitch McConnell.
The Bluegrass State is bourbon’s beating heart, producing 95% of the world’s supply, employing more than 23,000 workers and generating a cool $9 billion annually, according to figures provided by the Kentucky Distillers’ Association.
Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, explained that the EU-U.S. trade relationship was all but improving from those tit-for-tat tariffs during Trump’s first presidency.
The EU’s retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. spirits market caused a 20% decline in exports of American-made whiskey, which cost the nation’s spirits industry about $112 million. However, once the tariff was removed in 2021, those exports roared back into EU commerce. In 2024, American whiskey imports soared to $699 million.
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“We are urging President Donald Trump to negotiate an agreement that gets us back to zero-for-zero tariffs on spirits with our largest trading partner,” Swonger told FOX Business. “A 30% tariff on EU spirits products, including Irish whiskey and cognac, would be a crushing blow to the U.S. hospitality industry at a time when spirits sales in the U.S. are softening.”
Swonger warned that the 30% tariffs could “trigger retaliatory tariffs on U.S. spirits products hurting small American distilleries all across the country and the farmers they rely on to make these special local products.”
So far, the European Union, America’s top trading partner and the world’s largest trading bloc, has held back on imposing retaliatory tariffs. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said potential countermeasures, which could include U.S. wine and spirits, will be delayed until Aug. 1, a move that gives the 27-member bloc breathing room to negotiate a trade deal.
Current U.S. imports stand at roughly $3.4 billion of EU spirits like Spanish sherry, Italian grappa and Polish vodka. The U.S. market purchased about $135 million in Irish whiskey and $1.2 billion in French cognac in 2024.
‘This isn’t just a wine issue — it’s an American jobs issue’
The U.S. is Europe’s top export market for wine, bringing in about $5.4 billion for the industry in 2024, according to the European Committee of Wine Businesses.
In the U.S., European wines contribute nearly $24 billion to the U.S. economy, according to Benjamin Aneff, president of the U.S. Wine Trade Alliance.
“The U.S. benefits from a huge $19 billion economic surplus from the sale of imported wine from the EU that helps support hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” Aneff, also the managing partner of Tribeca Wine Merchants in New York City, told FOX Business.
“This isn’t just a wine issue — it’s an American jobs issue,” Aneff said. “We are witnessing real-time layoffs, shrinking revenue and shuttered operations. Losing this huge surplus of much-needed income going into the fourth quarter would be a gut-punch for the industry and result in huge numbers of lost jobs here at home.”
Aneff said he is hopeful, though, that Trump can “quickly come to a great deal with the EU that carves wine out of any tariffs.”
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