French wine has already been hit with a 25% tariff by Donald Trump and that could be just the beginning. The next round could be much higher reports The New York Times:
“The Trump administration said on Monday that a new French tax that hit American technology companies discriminated against the United States, a declaration that could lead to retaliatory tariffs as high as 100 percent on French wines.“
The French tax hits American tech companies like Google and Facebook even though, as the Times reports, they have a small presence in France.
A months long investigation by the Office of the United States Trade Representative recommended tariffs as high as 100% on certain French imports including cheese, wine, and handbags.
French wines were already hit with a 25% tariff back in October in a separate dispute.
All the uncertainty over trade is not going over well at the Fed, reports The Washington Post:
“The president’s enthusiasm for tariffs is not shared by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, who has said they are making executives so uncertain about the outlook that companies are delaying investments and slowing the economy.
“Likewise, the $28 billion in tariff revenue that Trump has earmarked for farmers hurt by his trade war is effectively a tax paid by other Americans — and now amounts to more than twice the 2009 bailout of the U.S. auto industry.“
Trump on Monday also announced tariffs on steel and aluminum from Brazil and Argentina.