European wines, amongst them
those of Jerez naturally, are facing tariff increases threatened
by Donald Trump to give commercial advantage to wines produced in the United
States. On Monday Trump announced his intention to increase tariffs on
French wines, something which would by extension affect other EU wines since EU
foreign trade works en bloc.
The president used a well known US
television channel and later social media to make surprising declarations about
complaints he had received from wine producers in California. According to him,
the producers in question said to him during a recent visit “Sir, we are paying
a lot to position our products in the French market yet you are allowing French
wines – which are good, but so are ours – to enter the US market free, and that is
not fair”.
What the president didn´t mention
is that the producers he received were representatives of the giants of the US
drinks sector, among whom are producers of fake Sherry, among many other
famous European wines whose names have been (legally) usurped in the US where they are
considered "generic" or a style of wine rather than a place of origin. That is not fair either.
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| Donald Trump does not drink. |
Trump also omitted to mention
that the serious wine producers in California, and other US states, had written to
the White House in an attempt to cool the tension between Washington and
Brussels, and to keep wine out of the trade war. Among the signatories to the
letter were the influential Napa Valley Vintners Association, along with other
associations like those of Sonoma, Oregon and Washington State, all with
recognised American Viticultural Areas - the US equivalent of European Denominaciones
de Origen – and Wine Origins, an international association for the protection of
geographical wine names from misuse.
Members of both the US and
European associations are in agreement against the new threat from Trump
against French wine, and inevitably European wine in general, and are writing to
both the president and the European Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström,
asking for wine to be excluded from the trade war. It has nothing to do with
the Boeing-Airbus dispute. As if this were not bad enough, there is also the
matter of Brexit and the Consejo Regulador in Jerez has expressed great concern
about its potentially very negative effects, and is working closely with Wine
Origins.
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