U.S. customs duties : coup for the cognac sector in Charente

The number three of the cognac sector in Charente is at a standstill, caught in the vice of the Chinese and American surtaxes, its two main markets. Reportage in the desert factory of "Rémy Martin Cognac".

Rémy Martin, a subsidiary of Rémy Cointreau, took the decision to place several hundred employees in partial unemployment one week a month until June, due to US customs duties and also Chinese anti-dumping measures.

The measure concerns 265 of the 390 employees in Charente. Rémy Martin is the first of the four major dealers of the place to have recourse to this device The house of cognac Rémy Martin, flagship of the

Unemployment is one of the first concrete consequences of the trade war triggered by Donald Trump and China. In the southwestern Hexagon, a cognac producer puts two thirds of its employees in partial unemployment. They will lose 7% of their wages. No bottle has come out of this factory since the beginning of the week because of the economic environment that is not conducive to the export of cognac. The United States, the world's largest customer…

Employees who have been arrested, a free-falling export market, and a strained industry... Behind a past decision almost unnoticed, it is a whole local economy and French know-how that is faltering. Unprecedented crisis for cognac The word is strong, but it is not galvanized. For the first time in its history, Rémy Martin, one of the three founding houses of French cognac, had to place a part of its employees with partial unemployment, one week …

The crisis in the sector has led Rémy Martin, number 3 of the cognac, to take a measure of partial unemployment which affects all production, to a halt this week.