The Biden administration has temporarily suspended tariffs on food, wine and liquor imported from the European Union and the United Kingdom, easing a trade war that has gone on for 17 years.
Tariffs on rum, cognac, and other liquor from EU nations, as well as cheese and other luxury goods, have been suspended for four months. The Biden administration announced the move one day after it suspended similar tariffs on whiskey and cheese from the UK.
Most of these tariffs were imposed starting in 2019 as part of a dispute between the U.S and France over governmental subsidies to their respective aircraft industries. Retaliatory tariffs hit American exports of whiskey and certain wines and other beverages.
The Biden administration, after first announcing that it would keep the tariffs in place, reversed itself and suspended them on March 4-5.
Wine importers and restaurateurs have been complaining that the tariffs were cutting into already thin profit margins.
"A small business like ours has absolutely no place in the middle of an international dispute between large aircraft companies," Ben Aneff, president of the United States Wine Trade Alliance, told Food & Wine magazine.
