French wine producers usually have love-love relationship with the United States, their largest export market. However, President Trump’s threat to impose 200% invoices on European wine, champagne and spirits sent the cracks through Grand Châteaus and small vineyards across the country.
“200 % tax on European wines and alcohol would mean immediate interruption in all missions to the United States,” said Gabriel Picard, president of the Federation of Federation of Wines and Alcoholic Exporters, said in French media. “This is almost 4 billion euros that wiped the French commercial balance for zero profit.”
The size of the invoice proposed by Mr Trump imposed no confidence reactions. “We are in shock,” said Laurent Delaunay, president of Burgundy Interprofessional Wine Bureau, who represents Burgundy winemakers, who added that invoices would be “devastating” if imposed.
“The United States is our largest market,” he said. “We have business relationships that have returned years.”
The two largest champagne production compounds in France were temporarily linked to the language. “We have just received the message from the US president. At this stage, we have no comment to make,” a Comité Interprofessionnel Du Vin Champagne spokesman told an email.
However, producers on the ground expressed deep concern about the uncertainty that they are able to work with American wine importers who would have to decide whether to be able to pay such abrupt invoices and if so, how to transfer them to customers.
“A 200 % invoice is a lot. It will completely kill the business,” said François Huré, who with his brother runs Huré Frères, a small champagne house exporting 10 to 12 percent of her annual production in caves and restaurants in the United States.
He said some buyers in the United States had already supported the possibility of 25 %invoices, but not one in the triple digits. “Our buyers today, our distributors in the United States will cancel their orders because they will not be able to afford it,” Mr Huré said. “It would be a huge brake in the champagne industry.”
Taxes at such a high level will essentially double the price of a bottle sold in the United States. “If the champagne doubles from $ 60, who will pay $ 120? No one,” he said. “Except perhaps the super rich. But that is not enough to run an industry.”
The United States is the largest market for France’s champagne industry, with 25 million to 26 million bottles sent to the Atlantic last year, Mr Huré added. In 2024, France exported wines and spirits worth about 3.9 billion euros in the United States, representing one quarter of its total exports.
The United States is also the top market for Borda’s value and volume, Bordeaux Wine Council said in a statement on Thursday. The same is true of cognac, which was stated by the National Interprofessional Bureau of Cognac, created 70,000 jobs in France. The sector “does not accept to sacrifice due to European political decisions that do not concern it,” the team said in a statement.
European alcoholic beverages were worried that their drinks would catch at CrossFire. On Wednesday, Spiritseurope, the European Lobby of Industry, called on the European Union and the United States to abandon their “differences” after Brussels announced on Wednesday increased duties in a series of imported US products.
Following Mr Trump’s announcement on Thursday, the team shouted its frustration. “This cycle of Tit-for-tat retaliation must end now!” Said in a statement. “Resetting invoices would be one step back – hurting businesses, employees and consumers on both sides.”
French Foreign Minister Laurent Saint-Martin said on Thursday that France was determined to respond to Mr Trump’s escalation. “We will not undergo threats,” he told X, adding that Mr Trump “escalates the trade war he chose to release.”
