(BFM Stock Exchange) – Pernod Ricard, Rémy Cointreau, Campari and Diageo saw their actions fall in the wake of a declaration by the American president threatening to establish 200% customs surcharys on wines, champagnes and other European alcohols.

The chorus begins to curl up on the stock market. Once again, the session was relatively calm and once again Donald Trump came to upset things with yet another declarations on customs duties.

This time, the President of the United States, more specifically targeted spirits. On its social network Truth Social, the tenant of the White House referred to “villains of customs rights of 50% on whiskeys” set up by the European Union.

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“If these customs duties have not been removed immediately, the United States will soon apply a surcharge of 200% on all wines, champagnes and alcoholized products from France and other countries represented by the European Union,” he wrote (yes, with capital letters).

In the wake of these messages, the wines and spirits groups experienced a very clear stock market dropout.

Around 4 p.m., Pernod Ricard abandoned 4.2%, Rémy Cointreau sold 3.4%. In Milan, Davide Campari abandoned 4.3% while London Diageo lost 0.44%.

The reaction of these titles may seem relatively measured with regard to the figure brandished by Donald Trump.

Bad memories

The market had already integrated the risk of new customs from alcohol trees. “The risks linked to customs tariffs from the United States and China will continue to darken the visibility of the results of the spirits of spirits,” said UBS in a note last week.

As of last October, Oddo BHF had identified the sector among the major “losers” of a victory by Donald Trump in the American presidential election, and in particular Rémy Cointreau, the company giving off 30% of its operating profit via the sale of cognac in the United States, noted the design office.

The Trump administration, during the Republican’s first mandate (2017-2021), had set up a tax on imports of wines, cognac and Scottish whiskeys of around 25% from 2019/2020 which had been suspended by its Democratic successor Joe Biden. “If these 25% additional customs duties had passed directly to the consumer, this would represent approximately 10 years of price increase in the American cognac market,” said Oddo BHF.

During the last season of results, the companies themselves had prepared the spirits for negative repercussions on their accounts.

Diageo had purely and simply withdrawn its medium -term objectives, in early February, due to “macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties in several of our in the process of recovery”.

Pernod Ricard had warned that the exercise 2025-2026 would be a “transition exercise” in “function of the amplitude of the potential increases in customs prices”. “In a context without preceding trade tensions, we focus on the protection as much as possible of our organic operational margin,” warned society.

Recall that beyond the American customs duties, the groups of European spirits face another front in China. The Ministry of the Economy decided in this country to apply provisional customs duties of 38.1% on cognac imports last October.