Trump repeats wine tariff threat in row with France

United States President Donald Trump has said he will "have no choice" but to impose a 100 percent tariff on wine imports from France unless the country does a U-turn on taxes imposed on big US technology companies, the third time he has made such a threat.

The 3-percent levy on companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook's owner Meta was approved by the French Senate in 2019, during Trump's first term of office, and drew his wrath then, when he targeted France's emblematic wine industry for the first time.

Trump threatened heavy levies on French wine and cheese, prompting then-finance minister Bruno Le Maire to say: "France is sovereign, and France decides its own tax rules. And this will continue to be the case."

Trump made threats a second time at the start of this year, when he said he would impose a 200-percent tariff on French wines and champagne unless French President Emmanuel Macron signed up for his Board of Peace initiative, which he declined to do, saying that its proposed remit "raises major questions, particularly regarding respect for the principles and structure of the United Nations, which under no circumstances can be called into question".

Now he has repeated his demand in an interview with the New York Post, published shortly before Macron entertains Trump in the run-up to a summit of the leaders of the G7 nations, to be held in Evianles-Bains, France, from Monday to Wednesday.

"I asked him not to tax American companies and, if he does, I will have no choice but to put a 100 percent tariff on all champagne and all wines coming from France," Trump said. "All Macron has to do is abolish this sales tax, and he won't face this kind of pressure."

The US accounts for around 20 percent of French wine sales around the world, worth an estimated $2 billion each year, and coincidentally, since Trump began his rollout of global tariffs, figures published by the French customs service, the Directorate-General of Customs and Indirect Taxes, have shown that sales to the US fell 15.9 percent in value from 2024 to 2025.

French wine and spirits exporters said on Monday that Trump's threat was bad news for an export-dependent industry caught in a dispute beyond its control.

"This new threat is bad news for our industry, which relies heavily on exports," French wine and spirits exporters group FEVS said in a reaction to Reuters.

The group urged "responsible behavior", calling for balanced and constructive trade ties between France and the United States, "in the interest of both economies".

Agencies contributed to this story.

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