[The Brew Ha Ha live show of Sept. 26 is not available due to technical difficulties. This podcast episode was recorded on Oct. 3.]

Tara Nurin calls in on today’s Brew Ha Ha. Tara Nurin is the Forbes magazine beer and spirits contributor, a friend and colleague of Herlinda Heras and a frequent guest on Brew Ha Ha. She speaks with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda about threatened tariffs on imported European products like beer, wine, spirits and other consumer goods.

European leaders and merchants today slammed the Trump administration’s threats to levy import tariffs on European goods. This includes French wines, cheese, whiskey, Scotch whiskey, and more. It seems that the administration is targeting unique specialty foods from Europe for 25% tarrifs. Tara and Herlinda explain that when products are unique to their place of origin, there is no substitute product for it. For example, Champagne and Bordeaux are also protected names, so there is no replacing those products when a consumer wants the original authentic merchandise.

Tariffs on imported goods are a tax that the importing country levies on the importer at the time of the goods’ entry. The exporting country does not pay the tax. Parties inside the importing country pay the tax, specifically, the importer who conducts the transaction at the point of importation. They may choose to pass the additional cost on to wholesalers, distributors and consumers in the importing country and they usually do so. That is what raises the final retail price to consumers for those goods. It also raises the price for companies that import goods, who must pay the tariffs and then collect higher prices downstream, in order to pay the tax. This acts to discourage consumption of the targeted imported goods by making them more expensive to consumers. So consumers end up paying the price of punishing importing countries when an importing country choses this policy.