Europe Delays Tariffs on U.S. Whiskey to Make Time to Negotiate

Officials from the European Union said on Thursday that they would delay their retaliation against President Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs — including 50 percent levies on American whiskey and other goods — until the middle of next month.

The move is meant to give officials time to refine the list of products that will be hit while also allowing more time to strike a deal with the United States, said Olof Gill, a spokesman. The first wave of E.U. tariffs were originally set to kick in on March 31, with a second wave coming a few weeks later.

The postponement could allow officials to reconsider whether they want to impose such big tariffs on sensitive products like bourbon. And it comes as Europe tries to prevent its trading relationship with the United States — arguably the globe’s most important — from devolving into a tit-for-tat trade war that costs consumers and companies on both sides of the Atlantic.

“The E.U. and the U.S. enjoy the largest bilateral trade and investment relationship in the world,” Maros Sefcovic, the bloc’s trade commissioner, said during a speech in Brussels on Thursday. “It should be a priority for both sides to protect and further develop this relationship.”

Mr. Sefcovic, who is in charge of negotiating trade matters for the E.U., talked to his American counterparts by phone last week. He said on Thursday that he had learned that the Trump administration did not want to negotiate on trade until after April 2, when the United States is expected to announce a new and even more sweeping round of tariffs on its global trading partners.

“For them, this should serve as a base line for redefining and rebuilding U.S. trading relations with the rest of the world,” Mr. Sefcovic said. “Only then may partners be able to engage on possible negotiations.”

The delay in negotiation has complicated the original start date for Europe’s retaliatory tariffs, which E.U. policymakers had always hoped would be a tool to prod the Americans to the negotiating table.

The E.U. announced its tariff package last week in response to steel and aluminum tariffs that began on March 12. The European plan was originally meant to take effect over two phases.

The first — the one that is now delayed — would have allowed a set of tariffs that had been instituted during Mr. Trump’s first presidency and then suspended during the Biden administration to snap back into place at higher levels. Whiskey, motorcycles and a range of other products would have been affected.

The second phase would have placed new tariffs on a wide array of American products. Member states were meant to consult on the proposed list, set out in a 99-page document covering everything from lingerie to soy products to machinery parts. Those tariffs were set to begin in mid-April.

Now, all of the tariffs are expected to take hold next month, adding heftier levies on up to 26 billion euros, about $28 billion, worth of exports.

Slowing down the process could allow officials more time to take feedback into account and make edits, relevant at a moment when the continent’s plan has already met with a prompt and painful response from Washington.

Mr. Trump said he would impose a crushing 200 percent tariff on European champagne, wine and other alcohol to retaliate against Europe’s plan to hit American whiskey in particular.

That threat has stoked alarm among European leaders from wine-producing nations. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, has warned against a “vicious circle” of trade measures, and François Bayrou, the prime minister of France, has said Europe is at risk of “hitting the wrong targets.”

Whiskey was originally placed on the tariff list during Mr. Trump’s first trade war, in 2018, as a way to target Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who was then the majority leader. Bourbon is an important export from his home state. But with a new crop of leaders in Congress and surrounding Mr. Trump, the political calculus around such products has shifted.

Hanging over everything is what more might happen before mid-April.

While details on the new tariffs that the United States might impose on April 2 remain scant, Europe has been bracing for their impact. Mr. Trump has at times threatened that levies on cars and other products could be as high as 25 percent — a painful blow to German automakers, for instance.

Mr. Sefcovic said on Thursday that the United States could also unleash further trade measures on copper, wood and shipbuilders.

Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, suggested on Thursday that tariffs were being used as “blackmail,” and that they could both sharply reduce European growth and add uncertainty to the outlook for price inflation.

But she said that if the E.U. responded by striking closer trade deals both internally and with other trading partners, it could offset those potential consequences.

“The answer to the current shift in U.S. trade policies should be more, not less, trade integration, both with trade partners around the globe and within the E.U.,” Ms. Lagarde said.