If EU Allies Are Looking Elsewhere for Arms, What About Bourbon, Wine?

What do you do when someone you thought was reliable turns out to be unreliable? You look for someone else whom might be more reliable.

Employers can do that when faced with a lengthy strike. They have a right to warn the striking workers they will be replaced permanently. Ronald Reagan did just that when air controllers struck the U.S. in the early 1980s. When a business finds it cannot depend on its suppliers, it goes looking for new suppliers. Likewise with consumers. When they find their local market no longer carries their favor beer, wine or spirit, they may start checking out other markets.

So it is with nations. This past week sober media (The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post) reported that faced with President Trump's declarations that he might pull back from NATO, members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union began planning to expand their defense industries and military capabilities. Trump had demanded they meet a 3% of GNP benchmark for spending on defense, and it appears Europe will do just that – by buying weapons from their own suppliers, who will step up production, and not from the U.S.

So, it's not surprising that bev/al execs are worried about the impact President Trump's trumpeting of tariffs will have on their business. They know full well that their customers overseas will be looking for other suppliers if Trump's Tariffs make American products too expensive.

The ironic bottom line may be that instead of making America great again, Trump's tariffs may contribute to the economic weakening of the U.S., just as his repeated threats to significantly reduced U.S. involvement with NATO has led our NATO allies to reassess their own position and to decide to indeed increase their defense spending – just not to increase it with U.S. weapons suppliers but with European suppliers.