You can be forgiven if the current financial markets are making you want a glass of wine. Trouble is, that wine might soon cost more. While the threatened tariffs of 20 percent on all European Union wines and 30 percent on all South African wines lasted less than one day before President Donald J. Trump paused them, tariffs of 10 percent remain in place for almost all wine-exporting nations.
With all the changes in trade policy since February 3, it might be easy to get confused. So here’s a quick update on where the trade battles stand and how this impacts the wines you may want to buy and the vintners who make them.
Wait a second. I thought the tariffs were paused, right?
Some of the tariffs are paused. On April 2, in an address from the Rose Garden of the White House, the President announced a series of tariffs on nearly every nation, based on their total annual trade surplus with the United States. The idea was, if a nation is exporting more goods to the United States than it imports, that must be because of unfair trade barriers. Those proposed tariffs rates included 20 percent tariffs for European Union members, 30 percent for South Africa and 17 percent for Israel.
The tariffs went into effect on April 9. Later that day, Trump announced they would be paused for 90 days to allow for nations to negotiate with the U.S. government and strike deals that would reduce trade imbalances.
But in Trump’s Rose Garden address, he also announced that every nation would face a minimum tariff of 10 percent.
Click HERE to read the full article.