Dear Friends and Colleagues,
This evening the USTR published their decision regarding the August 2020 carousel for the WTO / Airbus award. The tariffs on wine remain the same, with no changes to either tariff percent or category.
While I am thankful that your hard work helped mitigate the substantial threat of tariffs on Champagne regarding both the WTO and DST issue, this decision nevertheless ignores a massive public outcry. Tens of thousands of Americans wrote the USTR to demand an end to these tariffs. 164 Members of the House of Representatives and 13 Senators, elected officials from as diverse political views as Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Louie Gohmert, came together to lobby for the removal of these tariffs. With this decision, the administration will have to answer serious questions about how their policies are damaging huge numbers of small, mom-and-pop businesses throughout our country, at the height of the worst pandemic in a century.
It is now clear, the USTR is utterly failing in their job to appropriately weigh the damage to U.S. businesses when applying tariffs. I have no doubt that lawmakers around the country will begin to make this spectacular error in judgement even more clear to the administration. And we will be there to remind them.
This is a further reminder that halting tariffs prior to their implementation is of the utmost importance, as their removal, once put in place, is significantly more difficult. The next action we expect will be the conclusion to the investigation into DSTs from Italy, Spain, Austria, and other countries. It will take hard work to prevent wine tariffs in response to these issues. While we were able to help prevent tariffs on sparkling wine and Champagne in response to the French DST investigation, USTR will treat this as a separate matter, requiring our continued diligence moving forward. I will be sure to keep you up to date on this issue.
Thank you for all of your support, and for all of the hard work so many of you have put into this effort. We are significantly stronger together. If you have any questions, please let me know.Sincerely,
Ben Aneff