So far the trade war between the European Union and the United States has not really impacted retailers and consumers, but a further escalation is still very possible.
Alternatives
New European sanctions were aimed at shoes, rice, corn, orange juice, cranberry juice, whiskey, peanut butter, make-up, tobacco, cotton (including Levi’s jeans) and motorcycles. An average Harley-Davidson would go up some 2000 euro in price, but the company has already indecated it would move a part of its production outside of the United States, enraging the American president. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s or Jim Beam would go up 10 % in price, while food prices could be the ones to rise fastest as their margins and stocks are the smallest.
It still is unclear whether all importers and retailers will charge the consumer directly for these higher tariffs, or whether they will look for alternatives: there is corn from the Ukraine, rice from China or orange juice from Brazil. Moreover, the new tariffs are not applied on American brands if they produce outside of the United States, while products that are really “made in the US” are actually rather rare on the European market. Belgian economist claims the current tariffs apply to only 1 % of the complete Euro-American trade; a further escalation could however be very costly.
