Lifestyle
European wine producers brace for Trump tariffs
CHAMPAGNE, France (AP) — Across wine country in France, Italy and Spain one number is top of mind: 200%.
That’s because last week U.S. President Donald Trump threatened a tariff of that amount on European wine, Champagne and other spirits if the European Union went ahead with retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. products. The top wine producers in Europe could face crippling costs that would hit smaller wineries especially hard.
Europe’s wine industry is the latest to find itself in the crosshairs of a possible trade spat with the U.S.
Among those concerned is David Levasseur, a third-generation wine grower and owner of a Champagne house in France’s eponymous region.
“It means I’m in trouble, big trouble. We hope it’s just, as we say, blah blah,” Levasseur said, standing in his Champagne house as he swilled a flute of his vineyard’s bubbly. “When someone speaks so loudly,” he said of Trump’s 200% threat, “it’s about the media buzz. But in any case, we think there will be consequences.”
Like other wine sellers and exporters, Levasseur said that a 200% tariff on what he exports to the U.S. would essentially grind to a halt his business in that country.
“It could be a real disaster,” Levasseur said.
Italy, France and Spain are among the top five exporters of wine to the United States. Trump made his threat to Europe’s alcohol industry after the European Union announced a 50% tax on American whiskey expected to take effect on April 1. That duty was unveiled in response to the Trump administration’s tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum.
In France, a 4 billion euro market
Gabriel Picard, who heads the French Federation of Exporters of Wines and Spirits, said 200% tariffs would be “a hammer blow” for France’s industry, whose wine and spirits exports to the U.S. are worth 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) annually.
“With 200% duties, there is no more market,” Picard said.
Still, he understood why European leaders responded to Trump’s initial tariffs.
“There’s no debate about that. We agree that Mr. Trump creates and likes to create contests of strength. We have to adapt to that,” he said.
For Italy, it’s the wine at high-end restaurants they worry most about losing
In Italy, the wine industry has called for calm, hoping that negotiators in Brussels and Washington can back down from the growing trade spat.
The U.S. is Italy’s largest wine market, with sales having tripled in value over the past 20 years. Last year, exports grew by nearly 7% to over 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) according to Italy’s main farming lobby Coldiretti.
Strong sales at high-end restaurants, in particular, make the U.S. market difficult to replace, said Piero Mastroberardino, vice president of the national winemakers’ association Federvini.
Mastroberardino’s “Taurasi Radici” red wine, for example, was rated the fifth-best wine in the world in 2023 by Wine Spectator, an American wine and lifestyle magazine. It sells for around $80 a bottle retail in the U.S., roughly twice how much it costs in Italy, so any tariffs would push it to an “unthinkable price point,” he said.
In January, Mastroberardino’s U.S. import partners increased orders by about 20% in January anticipating possible Trump tariffs. But the increase in orders would not offset the impact of tariffs, particularly that high, he said, for long.
“It is in everyone’s interest to maintain a united front at the negotiating table,” Mastroberardino said, “especially those who are being targeted.”
Smooth reds from Spain, as well as bubbly Cava
Wine producers and industry experts in Spain, whose smooth reds are savored by tens of millions of American tourists who visit the southern European country every year, shared similar concerns about prospective tariffs.
“We don’t think they have much logic and we hope it never comes to fruition,” said Begoña Olavarría, an economic analyst at the Interprofessional Wine Organization of Spain.
Spain was the fourth-largest exporter of wine to the U.S. last year in sales, and the seventh-largest by volume, according to the trade group. Spanish wine exports to the U.S. grew by 7% last year. And the wine industry represents about 2% of the country’s overall economic output, the trade group said.
For Spain’s producers of Cava, the threat of U.S. tariffs hit especially hard. The U.S. is the largest market for the Spanish bubbly wine, which like Champagne has a designation of origin meaning it can only be made in Spain.
Mireia Pujol-Busquets is owner of the Alta Alella Bodega located in Cava country just south of Barcelona. Founded by her family in 1991, she said her business and its 40 employees immediately risk losing sales of some 25,000 bottles if the American market slams shut.
“We spent 10 years of effort opening the American market, finding distributors and building a brand,” she told the AP by phone.
While the Catalan bodega and its distributors in the U.S. were able to absorb the price increase induced by Trump’s 25% tariff on wines during his first term, Pujol-Busquets said that it is “completely irrational” to consider eating a 200% hike.
“The situation is pretty desperate,” she said.
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Naishadham reported from Madrid. Associated Press journalists Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain; John Leicester in Paris; and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.
NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Greenlanders celebrated National Day, the Arctic island’s biggest summer festival, on Saturday to mark the solstice with songs, cannon salutes and dances under 24 hours of sunlight.
Revelers across the semi-autonomous Danish territory, which is also coveted by U.S. President Donald Trump, honored the longest day of the year north of the equator, where the solstice marks the start of astronomical summer, with a march through their hometowns waving flags and participating in a seal hunting competition.
The national holiday was declared in 1985, following a referendum on home rule six years earlier, with the inaugural raising of the red-and-white Greenlandic flag. As the sun came out, locals gathered for the day of festivities, visiting friends and families, eating and dancing together.
Greenland’s roughly 56,000 inhabitants look forward to the midnight sun each year from May 25 to July 25, before the long, dark winter reappears.
The strategic, mineral-rich island has made headlines after Trump declared it his mission to make it part of the U.S., saying it’s crucial for American security in the high north.
Trump has not ruled out military force to seize Greenland despite strong rebukes from Denmark, a NATO ally, and Greenland itself. Danish and Greenlandic leaders say the island is not for sale and have condemned reports of the U.S. stepping up intelligence gathering there.
On Saturday, Greenlanders tried to leave politics behind to enjoy the seemingly endless summer sunshine.
Locals in traditional clothing made of pearl collars and seal hides started the day by marching toward the Colonial Harbour with Greenland’s national flags.
Johannes Ostermann, 20, said he loved the holiday because “you get to go out in the city and you get to meet the people you haven’t met in a while, and you know they’re going to be there because it’s a big day for Greenland and we enjoy each other’s company.”
“Everyone says congratulations to each other, everyone’s saying hi, everyone’s being very very nice because it is a very nice day for us all,” he added.
At 9 a.m., a cannon salute marked the beginning of the annual seal hunting competition, with participants in boats rushing into the sea.
It took about an hour for the first hunter to come back with the seal. The animal was cut open for an inspection. The organizer said the meat will be distributed to nursing homes, and all other parts will be used to make clothing.
Pilo Samuelsen, one of the winners of the competition, enjoyed his victory and the fact that the holiday brings together the community and keeps their culture alive.
“The seal hunt competition is a nice tradition,” Samuelsen said. “It’s a day of unity and the celebration.”
Sofie Abelsen, 33, said she hoped her people would continue their celebrations because “modernization and globalization is a danger to all Indigenous people and Indigenous countries.”
“So I hope they will continue the traditions … so they don’t disappear,” she added.
LONDON (AP) — As the sun rose Saturday on the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, a crowd erupted in cheers at Stonehenge where the ancient monument in southern England has clocked the summer solstice over thousands of years.
The orange ball crested the northeast horizon behind the Heel Stone, the entrance to the stone circle, and shone its beam of light into the center of one of the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments. The solstice is one of the few occasions each year when visitors are allowed to walk among the stones, which are otherwise fenced off.
The crowd gathered before dawn at the World Heritage Site to mark the start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, beating the heat during the U.K.’s first amber heat-health alert issued since September 2023. Temperatures later topped 33 degrees Celsius (91.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in Surrey, 80 miles (128 kilometers) east of Stonehenge, the hottest temperature recorded in the U.K. so far this year.
About 25,000 sun devotees and other revelers, including druids, pagans, hippies, locals and tourists, showed up, according to English Heritage which operates the site. More than 400,000 others around the world watched a livestream.
“This morning was a joyous and peaceful occasion with the most beautiful sunrise,” said Richard Dewdney, head of operations at Stonehenge. “It is fantastic to see Stonehenge continuing to enchant and connect people.”
Stonehenge was built in stages 5,000 years ago on the flat lands of Salisbury Plain approximately 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of London. The unique stone circle was erected in the late Neolithic period about 2,500 B.C.
Some of the so-called bluestones are known to have come from the Preseli Hills in southwest Wales, nearly 150 miles (240 kilometers) away, and the altar stone was recently discovered to have come from northern Scotland, some 460 miles (740 kilometers) away.
The site’s meaning has been vigorously debated. Theories range from it being a coronation place for Danish kings, a druid temple, a cult center for healing, or an astronomical computer for predicting eclipses and solar events.
The most generally accepted interpretation is that it was a temple aligned with movements of the sun — lining up perfectly with the summer and winter solstices.
MILAN (AP) — Dolce & Gabbana beckoned the warm weather with crumpled, take-me-anywhere comfort in their menswear collection for spring-summer 2026, previewed during Milan Fashion Week on Saturday.
The show opened and closed with a relaxed pajama silhouette — deliberately rumpled and effortless — in a clash of stripes, with both shorts and long trousers.
The Beethoven soundtrack belied designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s more deliberate intent, underscoring the designers’ structured approach to soft tailoring.
A broad shoulder double-breasted suit jacket and tie worn with pink pinstriped PJ pants encapsulated the classic summer dilemma: work vs. pleasure.
Raw knitwear, or furry overcoats, added texture. Boxers peeked out of waistbands, and big shirt cuffs out of jacket sleeves, challenging formal and casual codes.
Nothing was cleaner on the runway than a crisp striped pajama top in sky-blue and white stripes tucked into white leather Bermuda shorts — good for work and for play.
The designers’ finale featured pajama suits, shorts and pants, with beaded floral patterned embroidery for an evening seaside shimmer, worn with fuzzy sliders. Twin cameo brooches gave an antique accent.
The crowd outside got to share in the fun when the finale models took the looks onto the streets, taking a full lap outside the designers’ Metropol theater. Front-row guests included actors Zane Phillips, Theo James, Lucien Laviscount and Michele Morrone.
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