American surcharges on French wines levied as of Tuesday
Bottles of French Medoc wines at a wine fair in Paris.
AP - Michel Euler
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
The US customs service announced this Monday evening, January 11 in a note that it would begin to levy additional taxes on European products from this Tuesday, including spare parts for airplanes and French and German wines.
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The announcement comes at the same time that Washington had indicated last week to suspend until further notice the proposed increase in customs duties on certain French products imported into the United States.
The imposition of additional surcharges, decided at the end of December by the American administration, is linked to the interminable dispute between the United States and Europe over the dispute between Boeing and Airbus over state aid.
These American surcharges could cost the wine and spirits industry more than a billion euros.
"
This is a real blow in a fight in which we have nothing to do,
" Cesar Giron, president of the Federation of Wine and Spirits Exporters (FEVS), told Reuters at the end of December.
France is now awaiting a gesture from the future US President Joe Biden.
"
We must de-escalate,"
said
the French Minister of Foreign Trade on France 24
.
We have no interest between Europeans and Americans in escalating customs surcharges.
We call on the Americans to de-escalate.
However, we want to be respected because we cannot accept that the Americans tax our products, without us taxing theirs, from the moment we are authorized to do so by the WTO.
This is why at the end of the year we actually took the decision to react to the Americans' customs surtax policy by applying our own surcharges on Boeing and on American products.
"
Threats from Trump
The ax of the announcement of an extension of the 25% surtax, which already affects French wines, bulk wine, reds grading more than 14.5 degrees and eaux-de-vie when they enter the market. American territory fell on December 31.
Only champagne and sparkling wines still escape Washington's customs measures.
The first attack dates back to October 18, 2019, after multiple
threats made by Donald Trump
.
The American president had boasted in his tweets of wanting to punish “
the madness of Macron
”, who wanted to impose a
tax on GAFAM
(Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft), the American technological giants: “
I always have says that American wine is better than French wine,
”he said on July 26, 2019.
On that date, French wines without bubbles in the bottle were subject to a 25% tax to obtain their export visa to the United States.
The sanction was renewed on February 15, then on August 13, 2020. A decision very prejudicial to the French wine industry.
Bad news for Cognac
These new surcharges are bad news especially for cognac producers, for which the United States is a vital market.
Almost one in two bottles of French cognac is in fact sold on the American market, where marketing is aimed a great deal at rappers and
hipsters as
well as African-American and Hispanic customers.
Even if it was not targeted by the first round of taxes, cognac has already suffered a decline across the Atlantic in 2020, probably due to the closure of bars, restaurants and clubs during the pandemic, because it is mainly consumed. in a cocktail.
Sales declined 4% in volume to 7.2 million cases, and 17% in value to 1.1 billion euros over the first ten months of 2020.
Overall, over this period, France saw its exports of non-sparkling wines to the United States decline by 8% in volume and 25% in value, to respectively 11.7 million cases and 740 million euros. , indicates the FEVS.
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See also: Trade war with Boeing: Airbus and the European Union between appeasement and threat
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