US tariffs threaten German wine makers

DW (English)

US President Trump has threatened Germany with 200% tariffs on wine. Vintners are fearing for their US market, where German wine has a reputation and a customer base.

Transcript

00:00Konstantin Richter is heading to his vineyard in the Mosel Valley, which has been in his

00:05family for ten generations. He grows Riesling grapes here, and his family has been exporting

00:11wine to the United States since 1830. Today, around a third of the vineyard's wine goes

00:17to the U.S. But now Richter is deeply concerned about President Trump's threat of imposing

00:22tariffs of up to 200 percent on EU wine import.

00:27We're exporting over 30 percent of our output to the U.S., and if there are 200 percent

00:33tariffs on that, that entire business would go bust. 200 percent on top of everything,

00:38nobody would buy that anymore.

00:41The crisis has hit German vintners at an already difficult time. They're facing high labor

00:46costs, complex bureaucracy, and rising global wine production, which is pushing prices down.

00:53German wines have remained competitive due to their high quality and excellent reputation,

00:58but now it's becoming harder to maintain profits and sales. Trump's tariff threat has soured

01:03the atmosphere at Germany's largest wine trade fair in Dusseldorf, with many fearing a collapse

01:08in revenue.

01:11These tariffs would be catastrophic for the German export, especially since the U.S. is

01:16our biggest foreign market. We make a sixth of our entire profits there, so it would hit

01:22us extremely hard.

01:26Trump previously targeted German wines with 25 percent tariffs in 2019. German exporters

01:33and U.S. importers shared the extra costs and managed to weather that crisis. However,

01:39tariffs as high as 200 percent would be hard to swallow, if not impossible. For some, however,

01:46the glass is still half full, and they're trying to hold on to some optimism.

01:54A full-on trade war between the U.S. and the EU can still be averted. The EU has announced

02:00reciprocal tariffs starting April 1st, but until then there's still time to talk, and

02:05both sides should come to realize that a trade war would hurt everyone and that a deal should

02:11be negotiated.

02:14At his vineyard, Konstantin Richter is also hoping for compromise and more active support

02:19from the government.

02:21When Trump initially announced these 200 percent, high-level politicians and secretaries of

02:27state immediately had statements out in France and Italy. Just here in Germany, we haven't

02:32heard much from the government.

02:35German winemakers have survived many crises before. Right now, they're hoping to weather

02:40this one, too.

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