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'Toasts Not Tariffs': Critics Slam Trump's Threat of 200% Levy on EU Alcohol Products
"This is how trade wars escalate," said one observer. "Eventually you forget who fired the first shot, but the losers are consumers on both sides."
Mar 13, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to slap a 200% tariff on many alcohol products made in the European Union in retaliation for a 50% levy on American whiskey and bourbon recently announced by the 27-nation bloc's executive commission.
"The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "If this tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% tariff on all wines, champagnes, and alcoholic products coming out of France and other E.U.-represented countries."
"This will be great for the wine and champagne businesses in the U.S.," added Trump, who owns a Virginia winery. Only sparkling wine from grapes grown in France's Champagne region can be called champagne under a law protecting the product origin designation.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday that "we deeply regret this measure."
"Tariffs are taxes, they are bad for business and worse for consumers," she added. "They are disrupting supply chains. They bring uncertainty for the economy."
The European Commission's move to reimpose a 50% tariffs on U.S.-made whiskey and bourbon starting April 1 was itself part of the bloc's response to Trump's 25% levy on steel and aluminum imported from the E.U., which took effect on Wednesday. Trump has also unleashed a barrage of tariffs on some of the U.S.' main trading partners including Canada, China, and Mexico, and is threatening even broader tariffs if countries don't lower trade barriers by April 2.
French Foreign Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin struck a defiant tone Thursday, accusing Trump of "escalating the trade war he chose to unleash."
"We will not give in to threats and will always protect our sectors," he added.
The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, an alcohol industry lobby, urged Trump "to secure a spirits agreement with the E.U. to get us back to zero-for-zero tariffs, which will create U.S. jobs and increase manufacturing and exports for the American hospitality sector."
"We want toasts not tariffs," the lobby added.
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Is This the Beginning or the End of a New Cold War?
We hope that Trump and European leaders can recognize the crossroads at which they are standing, and the chance history is giving them to choose the path of peace.
Mar 11, 2025
When European Union leaders met in Brussels on February 6 to discuss the war in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron called this time “a turning point in history.” Western leaders agree that this is an historic moment when decisive action is needed, but what kind of action depends on their interpretation of the nature of this moment.
Is this the beginning of a new Cold War between the U.S., NATO, and Russia or the end of one? Will Russia and the West remain implacable enemies for the foreseeable future, with a new iron curtain between them through what was once the heart of Ukraine? Or can the United States and Russia resolve the disputes and hostility that led to this war in the first place, so as to leave Ukraine with a stable and lasting peace?
Some European leaders see this moment as the beginning of a long struggle with Russia, akin to the beginning of the Cold War in 1946, when Winston Churchill warned that “an iron curtain has descended” across Europe.
So are the new European militarists reading the historical moment correctly? Or are they jumping on the bandwagon of a disastrous Cold War that could, as Biden and Trump have warned, lead to World War III?
On March 2, echoing Churchill, European Council President Ursula von der Leyen declared that Europe must turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he wants up to 200,000 European troops on the eventual cease-fire line between Russia and Ukraine to “guarantee” any peace agreement, and insists that the United States must provide a “backstop,” meaning a commitment to send U.S. forces to fight in Ukraine if war breaks out again.
Russia has repeatedly said it won’t agree to NATO forces being based in Ukraine under any guise. “We explained today that the appearance of armed forces from the same NATO countries, but under a false flag, under the flag of the European Union or under national flags, does not change anything in this regard,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on February 18. “Of course this is unacceptable to us.”
But the U.K. is persisting in a campaign to recruit a “coalition of the willing,” the same term the U.S. and U.K. coined for the list of countries they persuaded to support the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. In that case, only Australia, Denmark, and Poland took small parts in the invasion; Costa Rica publicly insisted on being removed from the list; and the term was widely lampooned as the “coalition of the billing” because the U.S. recruited so many countries to join it by promising them lucrative foreign aid deals.
Far from the start of a new Cold War, U.S. President Donald Trump and other leaders see this moment as more akin to the end of the original Cold War, when then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik in Iceland in 1986 and began to bridge the divisions caused by 40 years of Cold War hostility.
Like Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin today, Reagan and Gorbachev were unlikely peacemakers. Gorbachev had risen through the ranks of the Soviet Communist Party to become its general secretary and Soviet premier in March 1985, in the midst of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and he didn’t begin to withdraw Soviet forces from Afghanistan until 1988. Reagan oversaw an unprecedented Cold War arms buildup, a U.S.-backed genocide in Guatemala, and covert and proxy wars throughout Central America. And yet Gorbachev and Reagan are now widely remembered as peacemakers.
While Democrats deride Trump as a Putin stooge, in his first term in office Trump was actually responsible for escalating the Cold War with Russia. After the Pentagon had milked its absurd, self-fulfilling “War on Terror” for trillions of dollars, it was Trump and his psychopathic Defense Secretary, General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who declared the shift back to strategic competition with Russia and China as the Pentagon’s new gravy train in their 2018 National Defense Strategy. It was also Trump who lifted President Barack Obama’s restrictions on sending offensive weapons to Ukraine.
Trump’s head-spinning about-turn in U.S. policy has left its European allies with whiplash and reversed the roles they each have played for generations. France and Germany have traditionally been the diplomats and peacemakers in the Western alliance, while the U.S. and U.K. have been infected with a chronic case of war fever that has proven resistant to a long string of military defeats and catastrophic impacts on every country that has fallen prey to their warmongering.
In 2003, France’s Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin led the opposition to the invasion of Iraq in the United Nations Security Council. France, Germany, and Russia issued a joint statement to say that they would “not let a proposed resolution pass that would authorize the use of force. Russia and France, as permanent members of the Security Council, will assume all their responsibilities on this point.”
At a press conference in Paris with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, French President Jacques Chirac said, “Everything must be done to avoid war… As far as we’re concerned, war always means failure.”
As recently as 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, it was once again the U.S. and U.K. that rejected and blocked peace negotiations in favor of a long war, while France, Germany, and Italy continued to call for new negotiations, even as they gradually fell in line with the U.S. long war policy.
Former German Chancellor Schröder took part in the peace negotiations in Turkey in March and April 2022, and flew to Moscow at Ukraine’s request to meet with Putin. In an interview with Berliner Zeitung in 2023, Schröder confirmed that the peace talks only failed “because everything was decided in Washington.”
With then-U.S. President Joe Biden still blocking new negotiations in 2023, one of the interviewers asked Schröder, “Do you think you can resume your peace plan?”
Schröder replied, “Yes, and the only ones who can initiate this are France and Germany… Macron and Scholz are the only ones who can talk to Putin. Chirac and I did the same in the Iraq War. Why can’t support for Ukraine be combined with an offer of talks to Russia? The arms deliveries are not a solution for eternity. But no one wants to talk. Everyone sits in trenches. How many more people have to die?”
Since 2022, President Macron and a Thatcherite team of iron ladies—European Council President von der Leyen; former German Foreign Minister Analena Baerbock; and Estonia’s former Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, now the E.U.’s foreign policy chief—have promoted a new militarization of Europe, egged on from behind the scenes by European and U.S. arms manufacturers.
Has the passage of time, the passing of the World War II generation, and the distortion of history washed away the historical memory of two world wars from a continent that was destroyed by war only 80 years ago? Where is the next generation of French and German diplomats in the tradition of de Villepin and Schröder today? How can sending German tanks to fight in Ukraine, and now in Russia itself, fail to remind Russians of previous German invasions and solidify support for the war? And won’t the call for Europe to confront Russia by moving from a “welfare state to a warfare state” only feed the rise of the European hard right?
So are the new European militarists reading the historical moment correctly? Or are they jumping on the bandwagon of a disastrous Cold War that could, as Biden and Trump have warned, lead to World War III?
When Trump’s foreign policy team met with their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia on February 18, ending the war in Ukraine was the second part of the three-part plan they agreed on. The first was to restore full diplomatic relations between the United States and Russia, and the third was to work on a series of other problems in U.S.-Russian relations.
The order of these three stages is interesting, because, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted, it means that the negotiations over Ukraine will be the first test of restored relations between the U.S. and Russia.
If the negotiations for peace in Ukraine are successful, they can lead to further negotiations over restoring arms-control treaties, nuclear disarmament, and cooperation on other global problems that have been impossible to resolve in a world stuck in a zombie-like Cold War that powerful interests would not allow to die.
It was a welcome change to hear Secretary Rubio say that the post-Cold War unipolar world was an anomaly and that now we have to adjust to the reality of a multipolar world. But if Trump and his hawkish advisers are just trying to restore U.S. relations with Russia as part of a “reverse Kissinger” scheme to isolate China, as some analysts have suggested, that would perpetuate America’s debilitating geopolitical crisis instead of solving it.
The United States and our friends in Europe have a new chance to make a clean break from the three-way geopolitical power struggle between the United States, Russia, and China that has hamstrung the world since the 1970s, and to find new roles and priorities for our countries in the emerging multipolar world of the 21st Century.
We hope that Trump and European leaders can recognize the crossroads at which they are standing, and the chance history is giving them to choose the path of peace. France and Germany in particular should remember the wisdom of Dominique de Villepin, Jacques Chirac, and Gerhard Schröder in the face of U.S. and British plans for aggression against Iraq in 2003.
This could be the beginning of the end of the permanent state of war and Cold War that has held the world in its grip for more than a century. Ending it would allow us to finally prioritize the progress and cooperation we so desperately need to solve the other critical problems the whole world is facing in the 21st Century. As General Mark Milley said back in November 2022 when he called for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, we must “seize the moment.”
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What Could Come After NATO?
If Trump moves forward with reducing U.S. involvement in the alliance, European countries may be forced to explore alternative security frameworks.
Mar 07, 2025
During his first term as president, Donald Trump criticized NATO, demanding that European allies increase their defense spending. This friction created uncertainty about NATO's reliability, a key aspect of its role in global security. Concern exists into his second term as countries like Ukraine brace for changing foreign policy.
This was heightened after a White House meeting in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was reportedly asked to leave, contacting French President Macron and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte afterward. Since their meeting, events have escalated, including the European Commission's proposal to borrow 150 billion euros for E.U. governments to invest in rearmament amid growing doubts about U.S. protection.
These concerns have also led some European leaders to explore alternative security arrangements beyond NATO. If Trump moves forward with reducing U.S. involvement in NATO, European countries may be forced to explore alternative security frameworks.
NATO's perceived instability could create opportunities for non-state actors and radical movements to challenge traditional security models.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, there was no immediate answer as to what should become of NATO or future security structures. Mikhail Gorbachev's concept of a "Common European Home," proposed in the late 1980s, aimed to establish a unified and cooperative security framework that would encompass both Eastern and Western Europe. This vision sought to move beyond the division of military blocs like NATO and the Warsaw Pact, instead fostering a collective security system based on dialogue and cooperation. Institutions such as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), which later evolved into the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), were envisioned as key platforms for conflict resolution and diplomatic engagement.
A central element of Gorbachev's proposal was demilitarization and arms reduction, which he linked to broader Soviet arms control efforts, including the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 and the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty of 1990. Gorbachev also signaled an end to the Brezhnev Doctrine, Glasnost, and Perestroika, which sought to reform the Soviet system while reducing tensions with the West.
The United States put forward a contrasting vision. In his speech "A Whole Europe, A Free Europe," President George H.W. Bush emphasized the spread of free markets and the expansion of NATO's mission to support Eastern European democratization and strengthen transatlantic ties. He positioned NATO as the central stabilizing force in post-Cold War Europe.
While there are reasons why NATO's expansion filled the post-Cold War security vacuum, it remains highly controversial. Gorbachev's remarks and declassified documents provide a nuanced view of the debate, particularly regarding the infamous "not an inch" exchange between Secretary of State James Baker and Gorbachev. Baker's assurance that "not an inch of NATO's present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction" has remained a point of ongoing contention, frequently cited in debates over NATO expansion and the commitments made during post-Cold War negotiations.
Baker's assurances were nonbinding and focused solely on NATO's presence in Germany, rather than a broader commitment against expansion. While these discussions did not explicitly address countries like Ukraine, any movement beyond Germany could be interpreted as conflicting with the spirit of those assurances. However, Gorbachev later emphasized that neither he nor Soviet authorities were "naïve people who were wrapped around the West's finger," asserting, "If there was naïveté, it was later, when the issue arose. Russia at first did not object."
Robert Zoellick, who participated in the negotiations as a U.S. State Department official, recalled that President George H.W. Bush explicitly asked Gorbachev whether he agreed that sovereign nations had the right to choose their alliances. Gorbachev affirmed this principle, effectively acknowledging that former Warsaw Pact countries could independently determine their security alignments. However, Gorbachev later expressed regret over NATO's expansion, stating, "I called this a big mistake from the very beginning. It was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990."
The debate over NATO's expansion did not end with Gorbachev. Russian President Boris Yeltsin also expressed mixed feelings, notably in a letter to President Bill Clinton. While he opposed NATO's rapid enlargement, citing what Russia believed were assurances made during German reunification negotiations, his position was inconsistent. During a visit to Poland, he reluctantly acknowledged Poland's right to join NATO, characterizing this statement as merely an "understanding."
Despite tensions, NATO and Russia initially pursued cooperation through the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, in which NATO pledged not to station permanent forces in new member states. However, Yeltsin later described this agreement as a "forced step," reflecting Russia's growing unease with NATO's expansion.
Other efforts to define NATO-Russia relations took shape through the 2002 NATO-Russia Council, which sought to establish equal dialogue. However, relations steadily deteriorated, first with Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia, then with the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and finally collapsing entirely in 2021 when Russia ended its NATO diplomatic mission.
George Robertson, former U.K. Labour defense secretary and NATO chief, claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin once expressed interest in Russia joining NATO, a notion Putin himself had also suggested. Putin transitioned away from these efforts, culminating in the 2007 Munich Security Conference speech, where he condemned the U.S. for seeking a "unipolar world," a vision he saw as destabilizing and unacceptable. He portrayed NATO's eastward expansion as a direct threat to Russian security and strongly criticized U.S. military interventions conducted without United Nations approval.
While there is far more history behind this issue, these fundamentals are key to understanding the barriers and complexities in discussing alternatives to NATO. The debate highlights core issues, including the West's interest in maintaining power, Russia's attempts to either integrate into or counter that structure, and the often-overlooked agency of smaller nations. These discussions tend to center on justifiable criticism of Western dominance, partly fueled by financial interests tied to weapons production, and Russian security concerns, while overlooking the actual security needs and self-determination of the nations most directly affected.
Although Russia perceived NATO enlargement as a threat, the newly independent states of Eastern and Central Europe had their own security priorities, shaped by decades of Soviet dominance. Many actively sought NATO membership, not to provoke Russia, but to secure their sovereignty in a post-Soviet landscape where Moscow's future actions remained uncertain. Dismissing or misrepresenting these concerns overlooks the agency of these nations. This was most recently evident in Sweden and Finland's decision to join NATO, which was driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine rather than Western pressure.
Discussions about the influence of institutions like the International Monetary Fund or the E.U. are important, but they must also acknowledge the genuine security concerns of these countries, which extend beyond external pressures or manipulation. For example, after gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine quickly recognized that securing its sovereignty depended on international alliances. In 1994, Ukraine joined NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP). This decision was made independently of later political narratives and took place years before the Orange Revolution.
Ukraine also entered into the Budapest Memorandum (1994), an agreement in which it relinquished its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the U.S., and the U.K., but this ultimately failed to prevent later invasion. It exemplifies how nonbinding agreements, lacking the enforcement mechanisms of military alliances, can create vulnerabilities and uncertainty in international security commitments. It also highlights the tensions Eastern European countries face when entering such agreements with Russia, particularly when they lack assured, legally binding military defense.
During and after this time, NATO's interventions led to allegations of war crimes, civilian casualties, and legal violations. These allegations span interventions from Kosovo to Afghanistan and Libya. The International Criminal Court attempted to investigate war crimes, including allegations of rape and torture by the U.S. military and CIA, but U.S. pressure shut down the inquiry. In 2019, the U.S. revoked the visa of ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and later imposed sanctions on her and other ICC officials involved in the investigation. Facing these challenges, the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor, under new leadership in 2021, decided to "deprioritize" investigations into U.S. and NATO personnel, focusing instead on alleged crimes by the Taliban and ISIS. This further undermined NATO's portrayal of itself as a purely defensive alliance.
Over the years, various alternatives to NATO have been proposed, shaped by different geopolitical, ideological, and strategic considerations. These proposals generally fall into three broad categories: European-led defense initiatives, U.N.-based security strategies, and non-state or decentralized models.
Some European leaders advocate for reducing reliance on NATO, particularly on U.S. military commitments, by strengthening the European Union's Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). This vision promotes an E.U.-led military force capable of acting autonomously when European interests diverge from those of the U.S. French President Emmanuel Macron has been a strong proponent of this approach, arguing that Europe's dependence on the U.S. leaves it vulnerable to shifts in American foreign policy, such as those seen during Trump's presidency. His vision includes a joint European military force that could operate alongside NATO when necessary but remain independent when transatlantic priorities differ.
Another approach emphasizes strengthening the U.N.'s role in global security as an alternative to NATO. One example is the Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative, which aims to enhance U.N. peacekeeping operations by prioritizing multilateral cooperation over military alliances. However, the Security Council's structure remains a significant barrier to any U.N.-led initiatives, as the veto power held by the U.S., Russia, and China frequently obstructs meaningful reforms and hinders the organization's ability to respond effectively to global security challenges. While calls for Security Council restructuring have gained momentum, particularly in response to conflicts like the Gaza crisis, the likelihood of the U.N. fully replacing NATO remains low without substantial institutional changes.
Nonaligned or regional security frameworks have also been proposed. This includes a return to Cold War-era nonalignment, where countries avoid military blocs, and the formation of regional security pacts. Organizations like the African Union (AU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could potentially assume roles similar to NATO within their respective regions.
Beyond state-centered models, some anarchist and labor movements propose radical alternatives that challenge the idea that security must be provided by nation-states or military alliances. These models emphasize mutual aid, worker solidarity, and decentralized defense structures rather than state-controlled militaries. The Zapatistas in Mexico, for example, have established autonomous self-defense forces to protect Indigenous communities, while Kurdish-led autonomous administrations in Syria organize security through federated agreements rather than centralized military command. In Ukraine, networks such as Solidarity Collectives play an important role in providing mutual aid and logistical support in conflict zones, working alongside unions to coordinate efforts.
Although these decentralized approaches offer an alternative vision, they face significant challenges, particularly the lack of strong military deterrence. In regions dominated by state-backed militaries, their ability to resist aggression remains limited. However, as NATO's legitimacy continues to be questioned, these models could gain traction, expanding the debate on security beyond traditional military alliances.
Trump is unlikely to formally withdraw the U.S. from NATO, but his past confrontations with the alliance and his current treatment of Zelenskyy signal to European leaders that NATO's reliability is no longer guaranteed. This uncertainty has already sparked discussions on alternative security frameworks, ranging from a stronger European defense initiative to broader multilateral arrangements. If European nations increasingly view NATO as unstable or subject to U.S. political shifts, they may seek greater autonomy, altering the global security landscape.
At the same time, NATO's perceived instability could create opportunities for non-state actors and radical movements to challenge traditional security models. As states reassess their dependence on military alliances, decentralized defense structures whether rooted in anarchist mutual aid networks, worker-based militias, or regional federations may gain traction. While such alternatives face considerable obstacles, NATO's crisis of legitimacy could open space for non-state approaches to security, expanding the debate beyond state power and military blocs.
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