Minority leader’s intention to vote for Republican funding bill to avert shutdown attacked by progressive Democrats
Donald Trump is starting off his morning by doing something he’s done quite often, which is threaten tariffs on major US trading partners.
The latest salvo is aimed at the European Union and their alcoholic beverage industry, particularly France and its world-renowned vineyards. Trump says he’ll put tariffs on what the bloc exports to the United States, after the EU yesterday imposed their own levies on American whiskey in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel.
The escalatory tit-for-tat is why these things are referred to as trade wars. Here’s what Trump wrote, on Truth Social:
The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky. If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES. This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.
This feels like he is playing an RPG with the lowest character and intelligence points, where his only remaining actions are "impose levies", "play golf" and "incoherent rambling"
No one deserves to drink wine from Virginia (coincidentally, where Trump's winery is). California has proven for decades that they can stand on equal footing to anything produced in France (sorry France - I still love you).
Californian red wine is pretty good.
But if it were off the shelves where I live, I likely wouldn't even notice.
And if I did, I'd be like "meh" and buy one from Chile, Australia, or Spain instead.
My country makes and exports better wines and spirits than France and nobody remembers us. I want to see the Orange Avenger being miffed at Portugal! I want tariffs on Porto and Madeira wines imports! Try and get those anywhere else!
then maybe Europe should retailiate by tariffs ov 250% on ANYTHING american - including ALL software services. And, if they don't pay immediately - what about rate-limiting their bandwidth until they pay proper taxes in Europe?
If they still block - SOME of their hardware is in European datacenters. We - Europe - plan on building our own big IT infrastructure. So, to quote Age of Empires:
"Nice cloud server - I'll take it." - and seize ALL the american IT hardware we've got here.