Biden And EU Drop Whiskey Tariff War
By Richard Thomas
US President Joe Biden and European Commission head Ursula van der Leyen announced this past Sunday that an agreement has been reached ending the trade conflict begun by former president Donald Trump in 2018. The trade difficulties began when the US imposed a 25% tariff on European steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum, measures which most experts regarded as either counter-productive, misdirected or both. The European Union retaliated with 25% tariffs on a host of American products, including whiskey, a measure which hit Kentucky’s bourbon industry and the many of the fastest growing craft distillers hard.
At the time, targeting Kentucky bourbon was perceived as a way to pressure then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) into taking action against tariffs he didn’t support. That tariff was set to double to a crippling 50% on December 1st.
Kentucky bourbon had seen double digit export growth during the decade prior to the Trump trade war. After the tariffs, exports fell by 50%. Similar difficulties were reported from Tennessee, and by craft distillers around the US that had either just begun or were in the midst of planning to open new export markets in Europe.
“This marks a milestone in a renewed EU-US partnership,” von der Leyen said Sunday. “We have restored trust and communication.”
“With this dispute behind us,” US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement, “we are in a stronger position to address global overcapacity from China with an enhanced enforcement mechanism to prevent leakage of Chinese steel and aluminum into the US market.”
The agreement has been met with applause in Kentucky. “It’s time to raise a glass,” said Kentucky Distillers Association President Eric Gregory.
In a press release, Brown-Forman President Lawson Whiting thanked President Biden and wrote “Brown-Forman looks forward to the return of a level playing field on January 1, 2022, and continued international growth for American Whiskey. We hope a similar outcome can soon be achieved between the U.S. and the UK.”
Chris Swonger, president of the trade group the Distilled Spirits Council said, “Lifting this tariff burden on American Whiskeys not only boosts U.S. distillers and farmers, it also supports the recovery of EU restaurants, bars and distilleries hit hard by the pandemic.”
Scott Harris, co-founder and manager at Virginia’s Catoctin Creek Distillery, echoed the sentiments of many in the craft whiskey sector when he said, “We have a chance to go over to Europe now and compete fairly and bring our products back in at competitive prices. This is what we’ve been waiting for the whole time.”
Oh boy. Now major distillers can start increasing their exports to further reduce the whiskey available on the American market thus driving up prices even more. Great work!
Editor’s note: Profanity was deleted from this comment.
A few years ago, folks like you were like “Yea! Trump is going to make it easier to get Pappy by bringing it back to America!” But these last few years, when less bourbon was exported, more brands got scarce and things got harder, not easier to scrounge up.
Now this one is saying going back to situation normal will make things scarcer, and it’s Biden’s fault she can’t get a drink. Where did you get your economics PhD, Trump U?
This gadfly individual is clearly casting stones out of his/her own economically ignorant glass house. First, I don’t see where Jess said anything about Trump or anything about being a Trump supporter yet gadfly immediately goes there for some reason. Hard to take anything thus person says seriously after that but I’ll go along with it for now.
In regard to the content of Jess’ actual comment, for gadlfy to disagree, he/she must not have tried to find a Buffalo Trace product in the past several years. These bottles are allocated because there is not enough supply to meet demand. This is true for many other American whiskeys as well. Producers only have so much capacity. Therefore, more exports of an already finite supply will result in shortages and/or higher prices. See how that works?
I would agree that this is good for distillers IF people weren’t already buying these products in America. But as anyone who actually buys whiskey knows, these whiskeys are snatched up as soon as they hit the shelf so there is no money left on the table. Jess is 100% right. All this is going to do is make it even harder to find good whiskey and/or increase the prices of whiskey you can find. Sure, they can ramp up production to increase supply but that takes years (e.g., Buffalo Trace) and as we all know, price increases never go down once they go up. The damage will have already been since.
Buffalo Trace is just one distillery in a huge industry. What is more, if you had any point at all, Blanton’s and Eagle Rare would have appeared on my local shelves more often during the trade war. Instead, they all but disappeared in those years. And anyone can see you people are Trumpers. Duh.
I was using Buffalo Trace as an example of the industry as a whole. But your foolish reply supports my point.
You admit the products you mentioned have been difficult to find while the tariffs were being imposed. This article was about how the tariffs being removed will encourage more exports. Therefore, increasing exports on an already limited supply will further reduce supply which will make products even more difficult to find and will increase prices even more on both the primary and secondary market.
My argument is not political and is really not hard for a person of average intelligence to understand. Jess was right and you lost the argument. Perhaps you & gadfly (assuming you aren’t the same person) should grow up and put aside your perpetual rage towards a man who is no longer even in office.
1) Isn’t there a rule, dating back to the origins of the internet on the bulletin boards, that only losers declare themselves the victor of any argument? Congrats on that.
2) You would have flunked Econ 101 anywhere but at Trump U. As well as being laughed off the debate team.
3) I don’t feed medicine to corpses, you’re boring besides, and I don’t like repeating myself. Bye Felicia.
This is classic Trumpcrap: totally Kruger-Dunning and totally insincere.
“Stephen,” this is the reason we know you from your dumb, dishonest, insincere gaslighting. We can all see the ugly, manure-stained, warty pig sitting in your lap: Trump’s trade war lasted nearly 3 years, and it didn’t accomplish anything but start the current supply chain problems. It certainly didn’t put Weller, Eagle Rare or Blanton’s back on the shelves. We also know export sales won’t take anything off our shelves either, because it didn’t do that before Trump’s trade war. We know these things because we lived them, like not even that long ago. You are lying to us about things we all experienced first-hand.
You know who denies what they lived through and buys the party line? A cultist. You are a cultist.
DUH. Go smear some wall on Reddit with your BS.
It really is sick the way certain people interpret literally everything through the lens of loyalty to a guy who would sell their children into slavery for $5.