{"id":169955,"date":"2025-06-09T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T10:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/169955\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T10:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T10:00:11","slug":"cognac-caught-in-prolonged-eu-china-trade-apat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/169955\/","title":{"rendered":"Cognac caught in prolonged EU-China trade apat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eighteen months after China threatened steep tariffs on European brandy in retaliation for EU action on Chinese EVs, a resolution remains elusive. While negotiations continue, the Cognac sector suffers mounting losses and fading market dominance in China.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Eighteen<\/p>\n

It is 18 months since Beijing threatened European brandy distillers \u2013 effectively Cognac \u2013 with retaliatory tariffs of 39% after Brussels said it would put a 50% tax on electric vehicles and components produced in China.<\/p>\n

They, Brussels alleged, were being dumped to the detriment of Europe\u2019s car makers.<\/p>\n

Stalled talks and escalating losses<\/p>\n

In the interim, there have been many protests and negotiations, but the talks have not resolved the trade war, while China examines allegations that European brandy is undercutting locally distilled rivals.<\/p>\n

In 2023, China imported around US$1.7 billion worth of French brandy \u2013 almost entirely Cognac \u2013 and was the industry\u2019s most important single market as measured by value and the second-largest by volume after the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By February, the dispute had cost Cognac more than \u20ac50m in lost sales. Those losses have continued to grow because of a \u201cdeposit\u201d scheme placed on the imports, but also because the lucrative travel retail market in China has effectively been shut off.<\/p>\n

Political promises and delays<\/p>\n

It has been more than a year since Presidents Macron and Xi Jinping agreed in a phone call to settle the matter quickly, but Beijing has repeatedly stalled.<\/p>\n

It was initially meant to make a final decision on the duties by January, but that deadline was extended to April and then again to July 5.<\/p>\n

Diplomacy and deadlock<\/strong><\/p>\n

Talks to progress a settlement continued last week when the two countries\u2019 trade ministers met in Paris during an OECD conference: technical talks were also held in Beijing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two sides have reached consensus on resolving economic and trade issues through dialogue and consultation\u201d, the Chinese foreign ministry said.<\/p>\n

The wrangle, however, is with the EU, not just France, which has referred China to the World Trade Organisation for violating its rules.
And French trade minister Laurent Saint-Martin said after meeting his counterpart last week: \u201cFrance will not compromise on \u2026 the protection of its industries, such as cognac.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uncertain outlook for recovery<\/p>\n

Despite the obvious preening, the mood music has raised hopes of a settlement, industry sources told Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, while Chinese officials signalled that they want to conclude the matter, one of the sources said, several sticking points remain.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, industry sources point out that even if the July 5 deadline is met, the market in China for Cognac will take a long while to regain its preeminence among Western spirits in the country while it restocks and weans consumers back onto its premium spirits.<\/p>\n

Related news<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n Pernod Ricard axes head of Cognac division
\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

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\n R\u00e9my Cointreau sees US Cognac sales rebound despite global headwinds
\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

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\n Cognac stocks surge as China delays tariffs
\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eighteen months after China threatened steep tariffs on European brandy in retaliation for EU action on Chinese EVs,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[70859,1395,15451,2000,299,5187,479],"class_list":{"0":"post-169955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-brandy","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-cognac","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-tariffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114652828513631085","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}