For the last six months, the European Union (EU) has held in suspension its 25% retaliatory tariff on American bourbon. But that six-month suspension ended yesterday, February 5. Which means the EU could reinstate its bourbon tariff today, or at any point in the future.
Just what American bourbon producers need right now.
But not just bourbon producers—corn and wheat farmers, oak barrel manufacturers, and everyone else who is in the supply chain for producing bourbon are in the crosshairs. And especially the employees of those companies.
Since it’s been confusing to a lot of people, let’s review how tariffs work. If the EU puts a 25% tariff on imports of American bourbon, that means European consumers will pay a much higher price for it. The country that levies the tariff pays the tariff. The intent of tariffs is to make imports more expensive, so that imports will decrease. You intentionally make imports more expensive for your own consumers.
And, for the nth time, it is Americans who pay the tariffs that the Trump administration has levied on, well, just about everyone and everything. When the United States puts tariffs on bananas from Guatemala, it is American households, not Guatemalans, who pay the tariffs. Guatemalans just lose their jobs.
And when the EU tariffs American bourbon, we don’t pay more for bourbon—they do. But we sell less of it to them. In other words, we’re both harmed.
Sorry for being pedantic, but there has been so much misinformation and falsehoods about who pays tariffs, we need to be very clear and a bit repetitive.
“Well, I don’t drink bourbon and I don’t work in the liquor industry, so the tariffs won’t hurt me,” you might say. Granted. But the tariffs on hundreds of other consumer items and thousands of raw materials DO hurt you. They harm the industries you work in, and they make you pay higher prices.
And for what? To create a golden age of manufacturing in the U.S? How’s that working out?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Situation Report for December 2025 (released Jan. 9, 2026), showed that manufacturing employment was down 10,000 jobs over Q4 (Oct. → Dec.), and down 68,000 jobs year-over-year (Dec. 2024 → Dec. 2025).
Whatever policy problem you’re trying to solve, tariffs are a lousy tool to accomplish it.
We expect the Supreme Court to relieve us of many of the most egregious and capricious tariffs imposed by this administration any day now. Perhaps our trading partners are waiting as well.
But relying on a sober Judicial Branch to save us from an impotent Legislative Branch and the daily chaos of the Executive Branch is a precarious situation for a supposedly self-governing people.