Trump Threatens 100 % Tariff on French Wine at 2026 G7 Over Digital Tax

Using luxury alcohol as bargaining chip recalls the 1964 U.S. “Chicken Tax,” when Washington retaliated against European levies on poultry by slapping a 25 % duty on light trucks—a tariff that reshaped auto production for decades. Trump’s threat typifies a post-2016 pattern of wielding Section 301-style tariffs to force non-trade concessions, blurring lines between tax sovereignty and trade policy. It also exposes an unresolved 21st-century tension: nations want to tax footloose digital revenue, while the U.S. defends its flagship firms, and the OECD’s stalled global tax deal offers no enforceable substitute. Whether or not the 100 % duty is ever imposed, the episode signals that unilateral tariff brinkmanship—long thought tamed by the GATT/WTO order—remains viable leverage. On a 100-year horizon, the tussle matters less for the price of champagne than for what it foretells: the waning ability of multilateral forums to settle new-economy disputes and the re-emergence of great-power commercial coercion reminiscent of the pre-1947 tariff era.