US President Donald Trump threatened to hit French wines and champagnes with 200% tariffs in an apparent effort to cajole French President Emmanuel Macron into joining his Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts.
Trump’s initiative, which would start by addressing Gaza and then expand to deal with other conflicts, raises questions about the role of the UN, and a source close to Macron said the French president intended to decline the invitation to join.
Asked about Macron’s stance, Trump said: “Did he say that? Well, nobody wants him because he will be out of office very soon.
“I’ll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes, and he’ll join, but he doesn’t have to join,” Trump said.
Macron is due in Davos for the day on Tuesday before a scheduled return to Paris in the evening. Elysee aides have said there are no plans to extend his stay to Wednesday, when Trump arrives in the Swiss mountain resort town.
In another shot at the French leader, Trump published a private message from Macron in which he said he did not understand Trump’s actions over Greenland. France holds an election to replace Macron in 2027.
Wines and spirits exported to the US from the EU currently face a 15% tariff — a rate the French have been lobbying hard to reduce to zero since Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed to a US-EU trade deal in Scotland last summer.
The US is the largest market for French wine and spirits, with shipments to the US at €3.8bn (R73.31bn) in 2024.
Gabriel Picard, chair of the French wine and spirits export lobby FEVS, told Reuters on Monday, before the new threat, that the industry had seen a 20% to 25% hit to US activity in the second half of last year from previous trade measures.
A Macron aide said the Élysée took note of Trump’s remarks and stressed that tariff threats to influence a third party’s foreign policy were unacceptable.
It’s brutal. It’s designed to break us. It’s a tool for blackmail. All of this is outrageous. We have the tools. Europeans must take responsibility. We cannot allow such an escalation
— Annie Genevard, French agriculture minister
Europeans are weighing their own €93bn (R1.79-trillion) tariff riposte and even the use of the bloc’s “anti-coercion instrument” to retaliate against a separate threat of tariff hikes against a group of European states over Greenland.
“It’s brutal. It’s designed to break us. It’s a tool for blackmail. All of this is outrageous,” French farm minister Annie Genevard told news channel TF1.
“We have the tools. Europeans must take responsibility. We cannot allow such an escalation.”
Trump has threatened a 200% tariff on wine and other alcoholic beverages imported from the EU before, including last year in March as transatlantic trade tensions escalated.
Governments have reacted cautiously to Trump’s Board of Peace invitation, a plan diplomats said could harm the work of the UN.
A draft charter sent to about 60 countries by the US administration calls for members to contribute $1bn (R16.46bn) in cash if they want their membership to last more than three years, according to the document seen by Reuters.
Reuters
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