Importers around the United States got good news on Monday, as the Trump administration began accepting applications for more than $166 billion in tariff refunds.
This good news won't extend far to consumers, except in an oblique manner. It's very unlikely that wines on store shelves will get cheaper, but this move might stave off price increases in the near future.
"I think there will be minimal impact because much of the tariff burden was absorbed by businesses up and down the supply chain," Mike Veseth, who blogs as The Wine Economist, told Wine-Searcher. "They will receive lump sum compensation that may have minimal impact on pricing and sales decisions going forward."
However, with President Donald Trump's entire misadventure in trying to rewrite US trade law on the fly shot down by the US Supreme Court, it will take a lot longer for his administration to impose permanent new tariffs on European products. And it's possible that wine might escape new tariffs entirely.
But today, the only celebrating is being done quietly in the offices of various importers, especially those who ate some of the tariff hit in the first place to keep shelf prices the same.
And when I say quietly, I mean it. I reached out to a lot of wine importers today. None of them want to talk about it.
"Paying those tariffs blew a giant hole in their profit-loss statements, and so recapturing those duty payments is really going to be about making their businesses whole," said Jackson Wood, director of industry strategy for Descartes’ Global Trade Intelligence business unit.
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