In the United States, the wine world is fatalistic in the face of the probable return of customs duties – 01/12/2024 at 12:35

President-elect Donald Trump's desire to impose customs duties on all products entering the United States greatly worries wine importers and restaurateurs, who hope to be able to take advantage of exceptions to protect small businesses.

For the time being, wine professionals in the United States prefer to wait to learn more about the president-elect's real intentions.

“We are waiting to know the details, we hope that there will be exceptions on products which are particularly essential for small businesses,” underlines Ben Aneff, president of the American wine trade alliance.

Donald Trump set the tone by announcing 25% customs duties on Monday against Canada and Mexico, two of the United States' main trading partners and theoretically protected by a free trade agreement. He again threatened BRICS countries on Saturday with “100%” customs duties if they undermine the dominance of the dollar.

“We were worried about seeing him apply customs duties on European products first, that's not the case yet, but it could come. That's really what worries me: he could do it all at once. “, explains DeWayne Schaaf, restaurateur in Missouri (central).

In France, professionals are also waiting, admitted to the press on Wednesday the president of the Federation of French Wine & Spirits Exporters (FEVS), Gabriel Picard. “Around 10% it is addressed in a certain way, at 40 or 50%, it is punitive and it is the closure of the market,” he estimated.

In the long term, an increase in these customs duties could lead to “a drop in wages with fewer hours for my employees,” notes DeWayne Schaaf, for example.

“I will do my best to continue to buy European wine but in the end, if I want to stay open, it is the customers who will have to pay the customs duties,” said Noah Bush, owner of a restaurant group in Tulsa, Oklahoma (central).

– Painful experience –

In 2019, while the dispute between the United States and the European Union relating to subsidies granted to aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing continued, Mr. Trump decided to impose 25% customs duties on a set of European products, including wines and spirits.

An announcement which “shocked everyone”, insists Ben Aneff.

Noah Bush remembers that, while some of his establishments were “able to absorb part of the cost”, “in the end, we had to apply part of it to customers and we immediately saw a drop in sales.”

“We had to increase our prices by around 15%,” says DeWayne Schaaf, “the rest of the cost was covered by my restaurant, to maintain a competitive price on our high-end wines.”

On the French side, the duties also had a real impact: “25% customs duties, that was 25% less volume, that's 600 million less”, underlined Philippe Tapie, President of Bordeaux Négoce and of Haut Médoc Sélection, during the press conference presenting the Wine Paris 2025 trade show, Wednesday.

The vats of a winemaker in the Bordeaux region (France) on September 26, 2024 (AFP / Philippe LOPEZ)

At the time, American companies had increased their orders for European wine before the application of customs duties, which allowed French winegrowers to reduce the impact on their finances.

This is also the strategy that Noah Bush adopted: “I bought as much as I could, that gave us a small margin of safety. But we were hit after a while and we had to reduce the hours of our employees to try to keep up.”

“We oversold to try to anticipate things, it was an additional cost for them. It will not happen again, that’s very clear, we have no acceleration in sales or order intake,” concluded Mr. Tapie .

An opinion that DeWayne Schaaf does not share, however: “I bought 40% more than the last two months, I fill the capacity of my cellar to the maximum”.

“My distributor bought ten containers of wine”, the equivalent of several million dollars, “this is money that he will not be able to put on American wines, it is already affecting companies”, underlines -he.