As I expected, Trump has turned his gaze towards the European Union, and a cycle of tariff/counter-tariff/counter-counter-tariff appears to be starting.
a tariff raisng the cost of foreign booze to Americans? well, who needs foreign booze anyway. and those who do won't notice the cost increase.
of course, it couldbe hard on foreign distillers, reducing sales and causing unemployment and domino effects. so what do they buy from us that they could stop buying in retaliation?
actually i have been thinking for years they should boycot US products until we get serious about fighting climate change. boycutting US until we get rid of Trump might be worth a lowered GDP (for them) for a few years.
Based on vague memory of trade stats that I saw, booze is fairly well balanced on a net trade basis, and so long as you aren’t fancy pants about it, different brands within a category are fungible. What would happen is that US loses the foreign section of their alcohol store shelves, and foreigners lose the US section (which literally happened in Canada). This is a big variety loss for Americans, but a lesser concern for foreigners. E.g., Canadian rye is similar enough to bourbon, but I don’t think the US has the equivalent of single malt Scotch (produced at scale). We didn’t get a lot of American wines in Quebec, so not sure what the situation for replacing European wines with local ones is like.
a tariff raisng the cost of foreign booze to Americans? well, who needs foreign booze anyway. and those who do won't notice the cost increase.
of course, it couldbe hard on foreign distillers, reducing sales and causing unemployment and domino effects. so what do they buy from us that they could stop buying in retaliation?
actually i have been thinking for years they should boycot US products until we get serious about fighting climate change. boycutting US until we get rid of Trump might be worth a lowered GDP (for them) for a few years.
Based on vague memory of trade stats that I saw, booze is fairly well balanced on a net trade basis, and so long as you aren’t fancy pants about it, different brands within a category are fungible. What would happen is that US loses the foreign section of their alcohol store shelves, and foreigners lose the US section (which literally happened in Canada). This is a big variety loss for Americans, but a lesser concern for foreigners. E.g., Canadian rye is similar enough to bourbon, but I don’t think the US has the equivalent of single malt Scotch (produced at scale). We didn’t get a lot of American wines in Quebec, so not sure what the situation for replacing European wines with local ones is like.