Food, wine sellers brace for 'disaster' U.S. tariffs

Reuters Videos

Pecorino Romano...

Parmesan...

Asiago...

Lovers of fine Italian imported cheese - get ready to pay up.

A Trump plan to slap a 25 percent tariff on food and wine products shipped from the European Union is coming to a specialty shop near you.

The planned tariffs come on the back of a ruling by the World Trade Organization that gives the U.S. the right to hit Europe with the tariffs in retaliation for unfair subsidies given to planemaker Airbus.

Salvatore Di Palo, owner of Di Palo's Fine Foods Store in New York City's Little Italy, is worried the tariffs will have a devastating effect.

SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) DI PALO'S FINE FOODS STORE OWNER, SALVATORE DI PALO, SAYING:

"We went through many disasters, being in business for over 100 years. We went through a depression. We went through two world wars. We went through storms. This might be the biggest disaster of them all."

And the fears are being felt on both sides of the Atlantic. Over in France, wine producers like Lionel Lavail say the tariff will translate to a price hike of $5 to $10 per bottle for American consumers - and that's bad for his business.

SOUNDBITE (FRENCH WITH ENGLISH TRANSLATION): LIONEL LAVAIL, 45-YEAR-OLD FRENCH WINEMAKER AND OWNER OF CAZES ESTATE, SAYING:

"We fear a sharp decrease in imports of French wines because we are competing with other wine producing countries like Chile, South Africa and wines from California, because we mustn't forget that the United States produce their own wine."

He may be able to offset some of that by customers who decided to stock up and hoard his wines before the punitive tax goes into effect.

But that won't last. Any benefit from customer hoarding will fade by 2020, he warns.

Spaniards are also on edge. Their star national export, Iberian ham, is on the tariff list the Spanish agricultural association warns will impact more than $1 billion worth of food exports to the U.S.

Back in the U.S., Little Italy's Di Palo has a message for President Trump.

SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) DI PALO'S FINE FOODS STORE OWNER, SALVATORE DI PALO, SAYING:

"Don't punish the innocent people. Punish the ones that you want to fight about. I know you want to get results and the way of getting results is to cause a little disturbance but don't hurt the little people that are working hard. Hurt the big companies that are causing this problem. Go after them."

But there's at least some good news for customers who are lovers of Italian wine and olive oil; those two products aren't subject to the proposed import tax.