President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to impose 200% tariffs on French wine, including Champagne, if President Emmanuel Macron of France declined to join his proposed “Board of Peace” for the Gaza Strip.

France was among the countries the Trump administration invited last week to join the body, which Trump has said he plans to lead to oversee the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and supervise the rebuilding of Gaza.

Critics said the board could undermine the United Nations, which Trump has accused of liberal bias and waste. A senior French official said Monday that France did not intend to join, citing concerns that the board’s charter raised serious questions about respecting the role of the United Nations.

Asked Monday about France’s refusal to join, Trump threatened to impose steep tariffs on some of the country’s best-known exports.

Trump said he would impose the tariffs if France took what he described as a hostile stance, suggesting that the pressure would push Macron to join the board.

Trump has increasingly used trade threats as a tool of diplomacy and a way to achieve his broader foreign policy goals. On Saturday, he demanded a deal to buy Greenland, warning that he would otherwise impose 10% tariffs on a group of European countries, which he said could later rise to 25%.

On Tuesday morning, Annie Genevard, France’s minister of agriculture, described Trump’s comments as a form of “blackmail.”

“It’s shocking because it’s brutal, it’s done to force compliance,” Genevard told the French television station TF1, describing it as a threat aimed at not only France but also other countries who have been invited to join the board.

Reactions across France on Tuesday were angry, with many calling for a firm European response. Nathalie Loiseau, a member of the European Parliament and a former minister for European affairs, said on France Inter public radio that “positive parenting” is over with Trump and that “today is the time for firmness.”

“Either we assert ourselves,” she said, “or we fade into history.”

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Macron raised the possibility that Europe could use its anti-coercion instrument — often called the “trade bazooka” — against the United States, which he said seemed “crazy.”

“I do regret that, but this is a consequence of just unpredictability and useless aggressivity,” Macron said.

‘Board of Peace’

Trump announced his “Board of Peace” on Friday, and his administration later sent letters inviting countries to participate. The body’s charter suggests that Trump envisions it playing a role in a range of global conflicts, not only the war in Gaza.

Countries invited to join include close U.S. allies such as Canada, Britain and Saudi Arabia, as well as countries with which the United State has had strained relations, including Russia and Belarus.

So far, only a handful of leaders, including the pro-Trump Argentine president, Javier Milei, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, have said they would join.

This is not the first time Trump has threatened France with steep tariffs. In March, he threatened to impose 200% tariffs on European wine, including Champagne, as part of a rapidly escalating trade war between the United States and the European Union.

Trump did not follow through on that threat. Even so, the episode rattled French Champagne producers, for whom the United States is the largest foreign market.

Early Tuesday, Trump shared on Truth Social a screenshot of a message he received from Macron in which Macron offered to organize a Group of 7 meeting of major industrialized nations Thursday afternoon after the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Macron also offered to have dinner with Trump on Thursday, and told Trump that the two were aligned on Syria, while expressing confusion about the United State’s position on Greenland. Macron’s office confirmed the veracity of the message.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Yan Zhuang/Violette Franchi
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