Article: U.S. warns of tariffs up to 100% on $2.4billion in French imports (2020/01/08)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumers, companies and workers will pay the biggest price for proposed 100% tariffs
on French Champagne and other sparkling wines, cheese, porcelain, enamel cookware and handbags, witnesses told the
U.S. government on Tuesday.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office last month proposed punitive duties on $2.4 billion in imports from France of
sparkling wines and other goods after concluding that a new French digital services tax would harm U.S. companies.
Those tariffs would come on top of 25% tariffs already imposed on a wide range of European imports, including Airbus
jets, European cheeses, wines and other products in a dispute with the European Union over aircraft subsidies.
Washington last month said it could raise those tariffs to 100% and subject additional EU products to the tariffs unless a
settlement was reached.
President Donald Trump views tariffs as his best tool in disputes with countries such as France and China and insists they
will pay the cost of such duties, but economists say tariffs are borne mainly by importers and ultimately, consumers.
Ben Aneff, managing director of Tribeca Wine Merchants, a retail wine store in New York, said the existing and
threatened tariffs posed the “the greatest threat to the wine industry since Prohibition,” the U.S. ban on the sale and import
of alcoholic beverages that lasted from 1920 to 1933.
“The domino effect of unintended consequences from the proposed tariffs would be catastrophic for tens of thousands of
American businesses,” Aneff told U.S. government officials at a hearing hosted by USTR on the French tariff issue.
