EU removes US bourbon and wine from list of goods to hit with retaliatory tariffs

Amid the economic maelstrom of Donald Trump's trade war, drinks makers might take a small drop of comfort: the EU has dropped plans to hit American bourbon with retaliatory tariffs.

- Jennifer Rankin Brussels Lisa O'Carroll Dublin

Bourbon and other US whiskeys have escaped EU countermeasures, after heavy lobbying from the EU's drinks-producing countries - such as whiskey-making Ireland and wine behemoths Italy and France - who feared their alcohol industries would be casualties of a global trade war.

Bourbon and wine have been removed from a draft list of US goods that will be subject to EU retaliatory tariffs in response to Trump's duties on steel and aluminium announced last month, according to a leaked list first reported by Reuters.

EU member states will vote on the final list today, which targets €21bn (£16bn) worth of goods, down from €26bn originally foreseen, following talks with the EU's 27 member states and many industry bodies. The list of potential targets facing mostly 25% retaliatory tariffs now ranges from almonds to yachts via diamonds, soybeans and steel parts. But bourbon and wine have been dropped.

France, Italy and Ireland protested their inclusion after Trump threatened a counter-punch on learning of the threat to bourbon last month. On social media on 13 March he warned of "a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES".