US wine importer wins pyrrhic victory, but the story is not over

[AlexR]

WARNNIG: the following is a post of a political nature.


I was aware that Donald Trump’s weaponized tariffs, applied to over 100 countries on an arbitrary and impossible-to-understand basis, had been challenged in the Supreme Court.
Seeing as he has packed courts on all levels with his cronies, I had little hope that the tariffs would be judged unconstitutional (executive overreach).
But, lo and behold, the Court just ruled 6 to 3 that this was indeed the case.
Hallelujah

What I didn’t know was that the case against Trump had been brought by a wine importer!

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/21/busi ... isk-takers

What’s significant here is that no major US corporation, many of whom have lost a lot of money due to the increased tariffs, stepped up to challenge the authoritarian president.
Reflecting the political environment in America and the fear that reigns there at the present time, none of the big guys had the cojones to say “stop this madness”. How pathetic

The wine company, Vos Selections, is in New York

https://vosselections.com/contact-us/

Their website had a section entitled “Fighting the Tariffs”

https://vosselections.com/tariffs-blog/

The US is learning that protection is ultimately counter-productive (this is one of the oldest and most widely agreed-upon ideas in economics, going back to Adam Smith and David Ricardo) as the cost of living rises and the average American is hurting – not to mention the ill-will and anti-Americanism Trump has created around the world.

I mention pyrrhic victory because within 24 hours, smarting from his defeat, Trump blithely announced that he would retaliate by applying an across-the-board 10% tariff on imports from every country on the planet. Will this unbelievably petulant response give rise to yet another court case?
Who knows? With Trump pushing presidential power to new extremes of questionable legality, most anything is possible…
Let us look at what happened in Bordeaux. Trump pulled the figure of a 15% tariff on French wine imports out of a hat. And, compounded by an increasingly low US dollar to euro exchange rate, sales on Bordeaux’s most important export market have unsurprisingly slumped. Of course, that penalizes the local wine industry, but also consumers of Bordeaux in the US.

The whole theory behind protectionism is that by raising the price of imported goods, homegrown industries will get a boost. But does anyone really think that Bordeaux wine lovers will automatically turn to California wines? In my opinion, most such people already have a lot of Bordeaux in their cellars and will simply wait until the prohibitive import duties are a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, the US president plays havoc with the rules of international commerce and law.

AR

[JimHow]

As a criminal defense lawyer, I'm not as down on these Trump Supreme Court appointments as a lot of my liberal friends. They come from the Scalia branch, and are more libertarian, I would say, than conservative. Of course everyone focuses on the hot button issues like abortion, voting rights, etc., but I urge folks to listen in to one or two of their oral arguments sometimes. They are live streamed on the SCOTUS website. They have rendered several criminal court decisions that have benefitted minority defendants, like the Flowers decision on Batson jury selection issues which I think(?) may have been Kavannaugh's first opinion, it would have made Thurgood Marshall proud. Amy Coney-Barrett is a VERY thoughtful jurist. I don't agree with her Dobbs vote, but I think if you listen to her questioning in oral arguments, you'll see she's a very brilliant jurist who is not owned by Orange Man or anyone else. I had a drug trafficking conviction and eight year sentence reversed by the Maine Supreme Court because all three Trump appointees came down in favor of the defendant in Smith v. Arizona last year, a classic Confrontation Clause decision, uncle Antonin would have been proud. My Alaska murder case is working slowly through the appellate process, it was argued before the Alaska Court of Appeals last April, I was on a panel with Barry Scheck in a Baylor College Medical school presentation on the issue of forensic genetic genealogy evidence, he thinks this case is going to the US Supreme Court... where Gorsuch from the right and Sotomayor from the left are already on record with their skepticism of warrantless searches by the Government of DNA databases. as everyone knows, Ginsburg and Scalia used to go to the opera together with their spouses. Anyone who follows the Supreme Court knows that these cases are not as partisan as Fox News and MSNBC (or whatever it is called these days) make it out to be. There are many decisions with unanimous votes, and votes where liberals join conservatives, and vice versa. In the end, if you don't agree with Coney-Barrett's abortion decision, then... VOTE. Vote for U.S. Senate in particular, and President. Votes matter.

[stefan]

OTOH, Jim, I bet that you have nothing positive to say about Alito and Thomas. Of course, we cannot blame tRump for them.

[AlexR]

Hi,

In reaction to the Supreme Court ruling, Trump said that the judges who voted against him, including his appointees, were “very disloyal to the Constitution”, as well as “fools and lapdogs,” and that “I’m ashamed of certain members for not having the courage to do what’s right for the country”.
Referring to Justices Coney-Barrett and Gorsuch, he added “I think their decision was terrible. I think it’s an embarrassment to their families if you want to know the truth”.

These statements are particularly shocking due to the distance a chief executive should maintain from the judicial branch of government.

In a link with Bordeaux, the people here are very proud of Montesquieu, the city’s 18th century political philosopher, who pioneered the notion of balance of powers that came to be enshrined in the US constitution. Trump makes a mockery of this. He controls the White House, the Republicans have a majority in the House, and Trump has put his henchmen, and women, in many key positions in the justice system. It is a fact that judges he had appointed have overwhelmingly approved cases brought before the court in favor of the administration to whom they owe their jobs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/us/p ... udges.html

How is the illegality of the tariffs going to play out?

FedEx want their money back, and they are not alone.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly83r1njjro

Alex R.

[AlexR]

Here's an article from the New York Times on the effecr of the tariffs on the American wine trade:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/19/dini ... roid-share

AR

[DavidG]

https://vinepair.com/booze-news/census- ... -millions/

US wine exports (not imports) drop by a third in 2025 vs 2024, $428 million.
Imports went down $3.1 billion. Great news for the trade deficit.
Not so much for the US wine industry.
So much winning!

But the US collected $492 million in wine tariffs in 2025, a $410 million increase over 2024.

Who’s paying for the tariffs? Importers, directly. US consumers, indirectly. Not countries of origin.
Is Our Dear Leader confused?

And the promised boost to domestic industry? Oops.
So much winning I can’t stand it!

I also heard last night that there were no more taxes on Social Security. None! Heard it straight from the dude at the top. Imma take him at his word and leave that off my 1040. Think IRS will mind? Tariffs gonna replace income tax revenue anyway, amiright?

And he finally acknowledged global warming: we’re the hottest country on Earth!

[Claudius2]

Guys
Over here Singapore, even I’ve been shocked not at the decision per we but the vitriol from Trump about it.

As for the decision itself, I wonder if the WH advisers can find a legal basis? I hope not.

As for tariffs, I’ve studied them in some detail both as a student, consultant and lecturer. They are strangely seen as some panacea but they reward inefficiency and force customers to pay more whilst limiting their choices.

I shook my head when Trump introduced tariffs very broadly as a political weapon. They just add to the cost importers bear.

According to the AWRI, American wine exports fell around 43% last year. The local market here is a tiny one but I’ve noticed that the few who sold American wines have stopped supplying them. I do not have any. I wonder if there an over-supply in the US domestic market?

I hope that the Court decision does help Bordeaux and for that matter other regions and nations. My main point is that using tariffs as weapon is so unfair to the people and organizations involved. Emotional, mean spirited decisions hurt them.

Cheers
Mark

[DavidG]

Mark,

There is a serious oversupply of US wine here domestically. Vines are being ripped out, wineries are closing, people are losing their jobs. It’s a combination of decreased domestic demand due to interest in younger people shifting to other alcoholic beverages plus reduced interest in alcoholic beverages generally for health reasons plus reduced exports.