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'Toasts Not Tariffs': Critics Slam Trump's Threat of 200% Levy on EU Alcohol Products
"This is how trade wars escalate," said one observer. "Eventually you forget who fired the first shot, but the losers are consumers on both sides."
Mar 13, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to slap a 200% tariff on many alcohol products made in the European Union in retaliation for a 50% levy on American whiskey and bourbon recently announced by the 27-nation bloc's executive commission.
"The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "If this tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% tariff on all wines, champagnes, and alcoholic products coming out of France and other E.U.-represented countries."
"This will be great for the wine and champagne businesses in the U.S.," added Trump, who owns a Virginia winery. Only sparkling wine from grapes grown in France's Champagne region can be called champagne under a law protecting the product origin designation.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday that "we deeply regret this measure."
"Tariffs are taxes, they are bad for business and worse for consumers," she added. "They are disrupting supply chains. They bring uncertainty for the economy."
The European Commission's move to reimpose a 50% tariffs on U.S.-made whiskey and bourbon starting April 1 was itself part of the bloc's response to Trump's 25% levy on steel and aluminum imported from the E.U., which took effect on Wednesday. Trump has also unleashed a barrage of tariffs on some of the U.S.' main trading partners including Canada, China, and Mexico, and is threatening even broader tariffs if countries don't lower trade barriers by April 2.
French Foreign Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin struck a defiant tone Thursday, accusing Trump of "escalating the trade war he chose to unleash."
"We will not give in to threats and will always protect our sectors," he added.
The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, an alcohol industry lobby, urged Trump "to secure a spirits agreement with the E.U. to get us back to zero-for-zero tariffs, which will create U.S. jobs and increase manufacturing and exports for the American hospitality sector."
"We want toasts not tariffs," the lobby added.
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'Blatant Conflict': Fired FDA Workers Were Reviewing Musk's Neuralink
"DOGE operatives should stop interfering with the FDA's public health mission of assuring the safety and effectiveness of drugs and medical devices," said a doctor at one watchdog group.
Feb 19, 2025
A U.S. watchdog group and other critics are responding with alarm to reporting that federal employees reviewing applications related to a brain implant developed by Elon Musk's company Neuralink are among those fired as part of the billionaire and President Donald Trump's sweeping mission to gut the government workforce.
Despite business conflicts and a recent White House court declaration that generated some confusion, Musk is the head of Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has infiltrated and is working to purge employees from several agencies—including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according toReuters.
Citing two unnamed sources, the news agency reported Monday that "the cuts included about 20 people in the FDA's Office of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices, several of whom worked on Neuralink... That division includes reviewers overseeing clinical trial applications by Neuralink and other companies making so-called brain-computer interface devices."
While the sources "said they did not believe the employees were specifically targeted because of their work on Neuralink's applications," they and other experts warned the firings "will hamper the agency's ability to quickly and safely process medical device applications of all sorts," Reuters noted.
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said in Wednesday statement that "regardless of the reasons the FDA medical device center employees were fired, Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have a blatant conflict of interest because the agency's Center for Devices and Radiological Health is regulating the implantable brain-computer interface made by one of Musk's companies."
"Moreover, by eviscerating the FDA's device staff, DOGE operatives are impeding the vital work of protecting the participants in the Neuralink trial and protecting the public from medical devices that are harmful or don't work," he continued. "Paradoxically, with fewer staff, the FDA's review of the Neuralink device may be impeded, which makes no sense."
"DOGE operatives should stop interfering with the FDA's public health mission of assuring the safety and effectiveness of drugs and medical devices," Steinbrook added. "This is yet the latest example of how Musk's involvement with DOGE undermines federal regulators, from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the FDA."
Various reports from the past month have highlighted how Trump's return to power has benefited Musk and his businesses, including SpaceX and the publicly traded electric vehicle maker Tesla.
As Gizmododetailed Tuesday:
Neuralink in particular seems to have benefited from efforts to squash watchdogs. Last month, the inspector general at the U.S. Department of Agriculture had to be removed from her office by security after refusing to comply with her termination, which she believed was illegal. She happened to be heading up an investigation into Neuralink looking into whether the company was violating animal welfare rules related to its tests on animal subjects.
The FDA, too, has been looking into similar issues. Last year, the agency found that Neuralink's animal labs engaged in "objectionable conditions or practices" and urged the company to address the issues—but did not issue any punitive actions related to the investigation.
Neuralink and the FDA also had a standoff over allowing the company to move forward with human trials, a request that the FDA rejected over safety risks in 2022 before finally allowing limited trials to move forward a year later. In 2024, the FDA even gave Neuralink its "breakthrough device" designation, which allows for a speedier review process. The only thing faster might be no review at all.
A Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday shows that 50% of registered voters across the political spectrum have an unfavorable opinion of Musk, 54% disapprove of the richest person on Earth "playing a prominent role in the Trump administration," and 55% think he "has too much power in making decisions affecting the United States."
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'It's a Coup': Musk's DOGE Granted Access to Treasury System That Pays Out Social Security
"I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems," Sen. Ron Wyden said.
Feb 02, 2025
Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency—or DOGE—have been granted access to a sensitive Treasury Department payment system that contains the personal information of every American who receives tax refunds, Medicare, Social Security, and other payments from the government.
Newly approved Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Musk surrogates access to the system late on Friday, five people familiar with the situation toldThe New York Times. Bessent's decision came the same day as news that David Lebryk, a career Treasury official who was acting secretary before Bessent's confirmation, would step down after arguing with DOGE members over access to the system run by the Bureau of Fiscal Service that pays out over $6 trillion a year.
"Sources tell my office that Treasury Secretary Bessent has granted DOGE *full* access to this system," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote on social media on Saturday. "Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk's own companies. All of it."
"Americans don't want an unelected and unaccountable billionaire dictating what working families can and cannot afford."
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich also responded with shock to the news: "An unelected billionaire, with no actual congressional authority or governmentt experience, now has access to Treasury payment systems and sensitive information about millions of Americans who receive Social Security checks, tax refunds, and other payments. What could go wrong?"
The news heightens fears that Musk and the Trump administration are attempting to gain authoritarian control over the federal government by ousting or sidelining career civil servants and undermining Congress, which has the constitutional authority to decide how the government should spend its money.
DOGE gained access to the Treasury payment system on the same day that an official at the Office of Personnel Management said that Musk allies had locked career civil servants out of a computer system containing the personal information of federal employees. The news also capped a week in which the Trump administration attempted to freeze all federal grants and loans, a move that has been temporarily blocked by two judges.
Wyden, the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter demanding answers from Bessent on Friday when reports first emerged that Musk's team had tried to gain access to the system.
"To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy," Wyden wrote. "I am deeply concerned that following the federal grant and loan freeze earlier this week, these officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments to any number of programs. I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems."
Other Democratic lawmakers also voiced concerns on social media about the news.
"Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth, is rooting around in Social Security and Medicare payment systems. He's reaching his hands into our pockets and firing anyone who tries to stop him. This reeks of corruption—it must stop," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D.-Wash.) wrote.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called the news "alarming' and said that Congress must investigate.
People familiar with the situation told The New York Times that no payments had yet been blocked and that the stated mission of the DOGE team was to review payments, not to stop them. Musk suggested in a social media post on Friday that he was looking for inapropriate expenditures, but also that blocking funds might be appropriate.
"The DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups," he wrote on social media on Friday. "They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once."
Former Treasury officials told the Times that funds are dispersed by a comparatively small staff who rely on the agencies that earmark the funds to vet them. Don Hammond, who ran the system at the turn of the millennium, also toldThe Wall Street Journal that, while there were certain automatic safeguards in place, it was not the role of Treasury to approve or reject specific payments.
"Legally, if you want to stop a payment from taking place, the place to do that is at the agency level," Hammond said.
Responding to the article on social media on Sunday, Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens wrote: "The Treasury system makes the payments (cuts checks). It doesn't decide who to pay or how much. A little like an employer using a payroll processor. Musk has infiltrated the system to stop payments. It's a coup."
In an op-ed published by MSNBC on Saturday, Owens went into greater detail about her concerns, outlining three reasons why Musk might want access to the Treasury payment system.
- He could use it to stop payments to certain programs in order to work around the courts' block on the administration's spending freeze.
- He could access the list of blacklisted federal contractors in order to boost his own or his friend's companies and harm his competitors. (One of the DOGE allies granted access to the payment system, Tom Krause, is also a Big Tech CEO who leads Cloud Software Group, according to The New York Times.)
- He could use it to reduce Social Security or Medicare payments as part of DOGE's goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending.
Owens noted hat Musk wasn't "chasing these cuts for their own sake. He's helping congressional Republicans attempt to pay for a new round of tax breaks for corporations and the ultrawealthy—including Musk himself."
"It's nice to believe in a fantasy in which Musk and DOGE work alongside civil servants to improve technology and services for Americans and save a few bucks along the way. But all evidence points to the contrary," Owens continued. "The richest man in the world, whom no one elected to any government position, is seeking unprecedented access to confidential information, including information pertaining to his own business interests, and seems hell-bent on cutting off as much funding as possible for the programs that matter to the rest of us."
Owens pointed to a recent poll finding that only around one-third of Americans approve of DOGE, and that 52% disapprove of Musk.
"Americans don't want an unelected and unaccountable billionaire dictating what working families can and cannot afford," she concluded. "If Musk is going to continue running the government like one of his failed businesses, perhaps someone should force his 'resignation' too."
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