Paris (AFP)

French wine and cheese producers, targeted by the threat of punitive US tariffs, are worried about their exports to this country, which is a destination of choice.

"This is bad news for the sector and our professionals We deplore this decision which goes against the opening of trade," said Thursday at a press conference Antoine Leccia, President of the Federation of Wine and Spirits Exporters (FEVS).

While imports of French wines into the United States will be hit by 25% additional customs duties, the FEVS asked in a statement to the authorities to resolve the dispute between them in the aeronautical field in order to obtain the deletion of these measures which, according to her, "arbitrarily" affect the wine sector.

Mr Leccia stressed that the wine sector felt "taken hostage by these taxes", which will penalize "very strongly" producers and exporters, but also "consumers in the United States".

"An American distributor called me this morning to tell me he was canceling his order Beaujolais again," said the vice-president of the FEVS Louis-Fabrice Latour, who believes that this wine early traditionally drunk the third Thursday of November "will be the first collateral victim of these measures".

The American sanctions will apply to bottles of still wine (as opposed to sparkling wine) of two liters or less and having an alcohol level of less than or equal to 14%. Spirits and champagne are not affected by the sanctions.

The United States is the largest export market for French wines and spirits (3.2 billion euros in sales out of a total of 13.2 billion in 2018 worldwide). The only products covered by the tariff increase represented one billion euros of sales in the US market in 2018, or about 14 million 9-liter cases, according to figures from the FEVS.

- maintain market shares -

According to Mr. Leccia, these additional customs duties will have a negative impact as a priority on the cheapest wines. To replace French wines to less than 15 euros per bottle, "it will be easy [for consumers] to go for Chilean or Italian wines", which themselves are not affected by the sanctions.

"We are worried about the drop in volumes that may represent," said Leccia, while cautioning against the risk of loss of profitability, "because we will lower prices to maintain our market share." He therefore expects "a great vigilance for our companies from the State".

For the FNSEA, "agriculture once again demonstrates its geostrategic nature by paying for international trade tensions on subjects that do not concern it at all". The first French agricultural union therefore expects the public authorities to "envisage the mechanisms by which they will be able to pass the course".

The dairy sector is also worried about the health of its companies, which last year exported 25,000 tons of cheese to the United States, for a total of 176 million euros.

"It is the SMEs that will suffer the first consequences", of these measures, also ensures the president of the association Fromage de Terroirs, Véronique Richez-Lerouge, because they had for a few years a "strategy towards the United States" by making a "pasteurized cheese version" such as chaource, epoisses and ossau-iraty.

In addition, the Spanish Wine Federation also denounced an "arbitrary and unfair decision" and "called on the [Spanish] government and the European Commission to redouble their efforts to find a negotiated solution with the United States to avoid very detrimental measures ", while the United States is" one of its most attractive markets in terms of value and with the most prospects for the future ".

© 2019 AFP