EU Commissioner for Industrial Strategy Stéphane Séjourné said he is “hopeful” that the bloc will not target American bourbon with retaliatory tariffs.
“In principle, we should have good news in the next days,” Séjourné said on France Inter on Monday. “We will see in the next few hours.”
The European Commission had included bourbon on a list of American goods it would subject to duties after President Donald Trump’s administration slapped 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States last month.
Trump then threatened to hit European alcohol products with a massive 200 percent tariff. Such a measure could decimate the industry and would disproportionally hurt France, one of Europe’s largest alcohol exporters.
The French government has been for weeks urging the European Commission to spare bourbon. Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron hinted at the fact that France obtained what it wanted, noting that “difficulties that may have come up on the first versions of the lists have been corrected.”
As a European commissioner, Séjourné is expected to act on behalf of the entire EU and not represent France’s interests specifically.
Séjourné said that Brussels should respond proportionally to the 20 percent across-the-board tariffs on EU goods that Trump unveiled last week.
Séjourné said the EU had several ways to put pressure on America using the EU’s anti-coercion instrument, though he noted some could also harm European businesses as well. One option he discussed — and described as an “economic bazooka” — was excluding American companies from participating in European public tenders.
“Obviously, this would have major impacts for American companies … To use the vocabulary of Donald Trump, we also have the cards, so we have tools to make the Americans bend,” he added.
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