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Trump threatens 200% tariff on French Champagne, the latest turn in a boozy trade war

Tariffs have you craving a drink? Too bad.

3/13/25 10:02AM

Another day, another tariff.

President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 200% tariff on booze from France and other European nations after the European Union moved to reinstate an import tax on American whiskey. This is the latest escalation in a trade war between the US and the rest of the world, and it’s not the first time alcohol sales have gotten caught in the mix.

While the EU tariff was only on American whiskey, Trump said his tariffs would go on all “WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES.” He also said this “will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”

Not to be that guy, but: Champagne can only legally be labeled as such if it comes from the Champagne region of France. US wineries, predominantly in California, do produce sparkling wine, though.

The company most impacted company by Trump’s move is LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, owned by Europe’s richest man, Bernard Arnault. The company sold 61.7 million bottles of Champagne in 2024, and the largest share of those bottles were exported to the US.

Nate Becker

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OpenAI’s ARR reached over $20 billion in 2025, CFO says

Sam Altman’s $500 billion artificial intelligence behemoth hit a major financial milestone last year, according to a new blog post over the weekend from OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, as the company confirmed it had hit a more than $20 billion annual revenue run rate at the end of 2025.

Elsewhere in the blog post, Friar spent time addressing the company’s shifting goals, referencing plans to “close the distance between where intelligence is advancing and how individuals, companies, and countries actually adopt and use it.” As has become customary in the AI company press release genre, the CFO was also keen to tout the unending growth of the business, writing:

“Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization.”
“Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025.”

And, perhaps most importantly for current backers and those keeping an eye on the private company before its rumored mega IPO:

“Revenue followed the same curve growing 3X year over year, or 10X from 2023 to 2025: $2B ARR in 2023, $6B in 2024, and $20B+ in 2025. This is never-before-seen growth at such scale.”

That latest figure has certainly set tongues in the tech world wagging, just as the company announced it would begin rolling out ads to free and ChatGPT Go users. It also puts the chatbot giant a fair way ahead of competitors like Anthropic, the company behind Claude.

OpenAI Anthropic ARR race — Sherwood News

A business that scales with the value of intelligence

“Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization.”
“Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025.”