Trump's 200% tariff threat would be 'a real disaster' for Europe's wine industry

CHAMPAGNE, France (AP) — Across wine country in France, Italy and Spain one number is top of mind: 200%.

That's because last week U.S. President Donald Trump threatened a tariff of that amount on European wine, Champagne and other spirits if the European Union went ahead with retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. products. The top wine producers in Europe could face crippling costs that would hit smaller wineries especially hard.

Europe's wine industry is the latest to find itself in the crosshairs of a possible trade spat with the U.S.

Among those concerned is David Levasseur, a third-generation wine grower and owner of a Champagne house in France’s eponymous region.

“It means I’m in trouble, big trouble. We hope it’s just, as we say, blah blah,” Levasseur said, standing in his Champagne house as he swilled a flute of his vineyard’s bubbly. “When someone speaks so loudly,” he said of Trump’s 200% threat, “it’s about the media buzz. But in any case, we think there will be consequences.”

Like other wine sellers and exporters, Levasseur said that a 200% tariff on what he exports to the U.S. would essentially grind to a halt his business in that country.

“It could be a real disaster,” Levasseur said.

Italy, France and Spain are among the top five exporters of wine to the United States. Trump made his threat to Europe's alcohol industry after the European Union announced a 50% tax on American whiskey expected to take effect on April 1. That duty was unveiled in response to the Trump administration's tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum.

Gabriel Picard, who heads the French Federation of Exporters of Wines and Spirits, said 200% tariffs would be “a hammer blow” for France’s industry, whose wine and spirits exports to the U.S. are worth 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) annually.

“With 200% duties, there is no more market," Picard said.

Still, he understood why European leaders responded to Trump's initial tariffs.

“There's no debate about that. We agree that Mr. Trump creates and likes to create contests of strength. We have to adapt to that,” he said.

In Italy, the wine industry has called for calm, hoping that negotiators in Brussels and Washington can back down from the growing trade spat.

The U.S. is Italy’s largest wine market, with sales having tripled in value over the past 20 years. Last year, exports grew by nearly 7% to over 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) according to Italy's main farming lobby Coldiretti.

Strong sales at high-end restaurants, in particular, make the U.S. market difficult to replace, said Piero Mastroberardino, vice president of the national winemakers’ association Federvini.

Mastroberardino’s “Taurasi Radici” red wine, for example, was rated the fifth-best wine in the world in 2023 by Wine Spectator, an American wine and lifestyle magazine. It sells for around $80 a bottle retail in the U.S., roughly twice how much it costs in Italy, so any tariffs would push it to an “unthinkable price point,” he said.

In January, Mastroberardino's U.S. import partners increased orders by about 20% in January anticipating possible Trump tariffs. But the increase in orders would not offset the impact of tariffs, particularly that high, he said, for long.

"It is in everyone’s interest to maintain a united front at the negotiating table," Mastroberardino said, "especially those who are being targeted.”

Wine producers and industry experts in Spain, whose smooth reds are savored by tens of millions of American tourists who visit the southern European country every year, shared similar concerns about prospective tariffs.

“We don't think they have much logic and we hope it never comes to fruition," said Begoña Olavarría, an economic analyst at the Interprofessional Wine Organization of Spain.

Spain was the fourth-largest exporter of wine to the U.S. last year in sales, and the seventh-largest by volume, according to the trade group. Spanish wine exports to the U.S. grew by 7% last year. And the wine industry represents about 2% of the country's overall economic output, the trade group said.

For Spain's producers of Cava, the threat of U.S. tariffs hit especially hard. The U.S. is the number two market for the Spanish bubbly wine, which like Champagne has a designation of origin meaning it can only be made in Spain.

Mireia Pujol-Busquets is owner of the Alta Alella Bodega located in Cava country just south of Barcelona. Founded by her family in 1991, she said her business and its 40 employees immediately risk losing sales of some 25,000 bottles if the American market slams shut.

“We spent 10 years of effort opening the American market, finding distributors and building a brand,” she told the AP.

While the Catalan bodega and its distributors in the U.S. were able to absorb the price increase induced by Trump’s 25% tariff on wines during his first term, Pujol-Busquets said that it is “completely irrational” to consider eating a 200% hike.

“The situation is pretty desperate," she said.

This story has been revised to reflect that the U.S. is the number two destination for Spanish bubbly wine, rather than the number one destination.

Naishadham reported from Madrid. Associated Press journalists Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain; John Leicester in Paris; and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.

A glass of champagne is seen at the wine making facility of wine grower David Levasseur in Cuchery, eastern France, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Bottles Champagne are for sale at a wine dealer shop as President Donald Trump threatened a 200% tariff on European wine, Champagne and spirits if the European Union goes forward with a planned tariff on American whiskey, Thursday, March 13, 2025 in Ville d'Avray, outside Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

View of champagne vineyards in Cuchery, eastern France, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

A giant plastic champagne bottle is seen at the entrance of Cuchery, eastern France, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

View of champagne vineyards in Cuchery, eastern France, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Bottles of champagne are packed to be export at the wine making facility of wine grower David Levasseur in Cuchery, eastern France, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Bottles of champagne are packed to be exported at the wine making facility of wine grower David Levasseur in Cuchery, eastern France, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

A winegrower works in a plot of champagne wine in Cuchery, eastern France, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

French wine grower David Levasseur opens a bottle of champagne in his wine making facility in Cuchery, eastern France, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Israel struck Lebanon on Saturday in retaliation for rockets targeting Israel, in the heaviest exchange of fire since the ceasefire.

Earlier, rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel, for the second time since December, sparking concern about whether the fragile ceasefire with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah would hold.

Israel had said Saturday that it would respond “severely” to the attack from Lebanon early Saturday morning, when rockets were fired into northern Israel. Israel's army said the intercepted rockets targeted the Israeli town of Metula.

Hezbollah began launching rockets, drones and missiles into Israel the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of Gaza ignited the war there. The Israel-Hezbollah conflict boiled over into an all-out war in September as Israel carried out massive waves of airstrikes and killed most of the militant group’s senior leaders. The fighting killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon and displaced about 60,000 Israelis.

Under the ceasefire reached in November, Israeli forces were supposed to withdraw from all Lebanese territory by late January. The deadline was then extended to Feb. 18 by agreement between Lebanon and Israel.

But since then, Israel has remained in five locations in Lebanon, across from communities in northern Israel, and has carried out dozens of airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon, saying it attacked Hezbollah. Lebanon has appealed to the U.N. to pressure Israel to fully withdraw from the country.

Israel's Prime Minister's office said Saturday it instructed the army to act forcefully against dozens of targets in Lebanon, adding: “Israel will not allow any harm to its citizens and sovereignty." Israel's army said Saturday it was carrying out strikes on Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon.

There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.

In a statement, Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam asked the Lebanese military to take all necessary measures in the south, but said the country did not want to return to war.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said it was alarmed at the possible escalation of violence and urged all parties to avoid jeopardizing the progress made, saying further escalation could have serious consequences for the region.

The strikes come a day after Israel said it would carry out operations in Gaza “with increasing intensity” until Hamas frees the 59 hostages it holds — 24 of whom are believed alive. Late Friday night, Israeli strikes killed at least nine people, including three children, in a house in Gaza City, according to Al-Ahly Hospital, which received the bodies.

Israel's military said Friday its forces were planning fresh assaults into three neighborhoods west of Gaza City and issued warnings on social media for Palestinians to evacuate the areas.

Also on Friday, Israel blew up the only specialized cancer hospital in the war-torn territory. The Israeli military said it struck the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, accusing Hamas militants of operating on-site. Turkey, which helped build and fund the hospital, said Israeli troops at one point used it as a base.

Around 600 Palestinians have been killed since Israel relaunched the war earlier this week. Israel had already cut off the supply of food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians, aiming to pressure Hamas over ceasefire negotiations.

The international community has condemned the resumed attacks. In a statement Friday, the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France and Germany called Israel's strikes in Gaza a dramatic step backward. “We are appalled by the civilian casualties and urgently call for an immediate return to a ceasefire," they said in a joint statement.

The attack by Hamas-led militants in 2023 killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Most of the hostages have been freed in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered the bodies of dozens more.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 49,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were militants but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Shurafa reported from Deir Al-Balah, Gaza. Associated Press writers Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

People walking surrounded by buildings destroyed during the Israeli air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip are seen from southern Israel, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

FILE - Ronen Bar, chief of Israel's domestic Shin Bet security agency, attends a ceremony marking Memorial Day for fallen soldiers of Israel's wars and victims of attacks at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl military cemetery, May 13, 2024. (Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool photo via AP, File)

In this image made from a video released by the Israeli Government Press Office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a statement Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Israeli Government Press Office via AP)

Palestinians carry bundles of wood as they walk along a beach road leaving northern Gaza during the renewed Israeli army offensive in the Gaza Strip, Friday March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip sit in a makeshift tent camp inside a landfill in central Gaza Strip, Friday, March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Israelis attend a rally against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, and calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, outside the Knesset, Israel's parliament in Jerusalem on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Demonstrators block a road during a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, in Jerusalem on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Mourners carry the bodies of Palestinians including children who were killed by an Israeli army airstrike, at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza city, Friday, March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A Palestinian man carries the body of his 11 years old daughter Aya Al-Samri who was killed by an Israeli army airstrike, during her funeral at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza city, Friday, March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings and other items, move between southern and northern Gaza along a beach road away from the areas where the Israeli army is operating after Israel's renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip, in the outskirts of Gaza City, Friday March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings, wood and other items, move between southern and northern Gaza along a beach road away from the areas where the Israeli army is operating after Israel's renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip, in the outskirts of Gaza City, Friday March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)