A 3% tax on Big Tech could end with a 100% tax on champagne.
That is the trade Trump put on the table this week. French wine is the bargaining chip.
France charges a 3% digital services tax. It is a fee on the French sales of big tech firms.
That hits names like Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet. France passed the tax back in 2019.
The U.S. has long called the tax unfair. It says the rule hits American firms harder than French ones.
Trump wants it gone. His threat is blunt.
Scrap it, or tariffs on French wine and champagne jump to 100%. A tariff is a tax on goods coming into the country.
A 100% rate would roughly double the price on U.S. shelves. That would hurt French growers and U.S. buyers alike.
A $50 bottle could land near $100. Some buyers would just trade down or walk away.
Here is how Trump put it. He said he would "charge a 100% tariff on all champagnes and all wines coming out of France."
The timing is pointed. He made the threat right before this week's G7 summit.
France is hosting that summit. So the pressure lands at home.
That makes the threat hard to ignore. Macron will face it in front of the world's top leaders.
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The U.S. is a huge customer. American buyers take about $2 billion of French wine a year.
That is close to one-fifth of all the wine France sells abroad. So the threat hits a real nerve.
Few markets buy as much French wine as America does. Losing that demand would sting growers fast.
That business was already shrinking. French wine sales to the U.S. fell about 16% in value last year.
They dropped to 1.9 billion euros, down from 2.4 billion the year before. It is not clear what drove the fall.
It could be tariffs, or it could be a shift to cheaper bottles. Wine experts say both are possible.
Wine is one of France's prized exports. A long fight could dent an industry built over centuries.
This is not the first swing, either. Trump floated wine tariffs over the same tax back in 2019.
In January, he raised the idea of a 200% tariff. That one was meant to push Macron on a separate peace plan.
So wine keeps turning up as a pressure tool. It is valuable, easy to spot, and easy to tax.
CNBC said it asked the French government for comment.
The G7 hands both leaders a stage this week. The question is whether Macron drops the tax or calls the bluff.
A lot of champagne is riding on the answer.
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