Standing on the 18th green at his Doonbeg golf course during the Irish Open in September, President Donald Trump told the crowd he was "going to take the tariffs off Irish whiskey." More than a month later, the tariffs are still on. A bottle of Irish whiskey crossing into the United States still carries a 10% duty, and the Irish government says the paperwork that would turn the president's promise into policy is still being worked out.
"Intensive engagement with the US Trade Representative on technical implementation is still ongoing," a spokesperson for Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told RTÉ in a report published October 24. The department said it wants the changes made "as soon as possible."
The delay matters because of who is not paying. Scotch whisky, and whiskey distilled across the border in Northern Ireland, currently enters the US with no tariff at all. That leaves distillers in the Republic paying a duty their closest competitors no longer face, in the market the Irish whiskey industry considers its most important.
A 10% Gap on the Same Island
The odd geography of the current arrangement comes from the way the UK secured its whisky relief. After President Trump said in the spring that he would lift tariffs on Scotch, the Office of the US Trade Representative carved UK whiskies out of a broader Section 301 tariff action covering dozens of trading partners. The Scotch Whisky Association said the US tariffs on Scotch were removed on July 24. Because Northern Ireland is part of the UK, whiskey made there was covered by the same exemption.
The Republic of Ireland, as an EU member state, was not. Its whiskey remains subject to a 10% duty. In practical terms, a distillery in County Antrim and a distillery in County Cork can ship comparable bottles to the same American importer and face different tariff bills at the port.
For a category that has spent two decades as one of the fastest-growing in American spirits, that is not a rounding error. A 10% duty applies to the import value of every case, and it lands hardest on smaller Irish distilleries that lack the scale to absorb it. Large brands owned by multinational groups can spread the cost across a global portfolio. A young independent distillery shipping its first pallets to an American importer cannot.
Why one sentence on a golf course isn't enough
Tariff changes of this kind are not self-executing. A presidential announcement has to be followed by a formal legal instrument, typically a modification of the underlying trade action published in the Federal Register, specifying which products are covered and when the change takes effect. Until that notice appears, US Customs continues to collect the duty.
The UK precedent suggests the wait is not unusual. The Scotch exemption was announced in the spring and took effect on July 24, a gap of roughly three months. The Irish Whiskey Association made the same point, noting that a "similar announcement on UK whiskey took three months to be fully implemented." On that timeline, a mid-September announcement would point to implementation sometime in December, though nothing about the schedule has been confirmed.
Dublin's Ask Is Bigger Than Whiskey
The Irish government welcomes the whiskey relief but is not presenting it as the finish line. Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Helen McEntee has said Ireland's position is to see zero tariffs for all EU spirits, not just its own.
That framing reflects a tension built into the announcement. Trade policy for EU members is set in Brussels, not in national capitals, and an exemption that applies to one member state and not the others sits awkwardly with the bloc's insistence on negotiating as a single unit. President Trump has said the relief applies only to Ireland and will not be extended to the rest of the EU.
Brussels is waiting for the fine print
European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill, who stressed that the EU speaks with "one voice" on trade, said "we need to wait to see the details on how the US proposes to turn this into law." Gill also pointed to the roughly three-month gap between the Scotch announcement and its implementation as a guide to the likely timetable.
Paris wants the same deal for cognac
The Irish carve-out has already prompted other capitals to ask for equal treatment. France's trade minister, Nicolas Forissier, raised the issue ahead of an informal meeting of EU trade ministers in Dublin. "I noticed that the Irish whiskeys have no duties now," he said. "It should be the same for the French cognac." Forissier has also said he raised French wines and spirits, including Champagne, with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Forissier's remark, which treats the Irish relief as already done, captures how quickly a presidential announcement can become a negotiating baseline for everyone else, even before it has legal effect.
What the Irish Whiskey Industry Is Saying
The Irish Whiskey Association "warmly welcomed" the president's announcement and credited the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Ireland's embassy in Washington, "who recognise the importance of this tariff removal for Irish businesses."
"The US is the biggest market for Irish whiskey, and we are looking forward to this tariff liberalisation being realised," said Eoin Ó Catháin, director of the association. "We look forward to a return to tariff-free trade with the US, which will benefit businesses and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic," he said.
That phrase, a return to tariff-free trade, is the key to understanding what is at stake. For decades, whiskey moved between the US and Europe with no duty on either side, an arrangement that let Irish brands build huge followings in American bars and let bourbon become a fixture on European back bars. The tariff disputes of the last several years have repeatedly broken that arrangement, and the industry on both sides has spent much of that time trying to restore it.
The Bourbon Side of the Ledger
American whiskey makers have their own memories of how this works. In 2018, the EU slapped a 25% retaliatory tariff on American whiskey in response to US steel and aluminum duties, and bourbon exports to Europe fell sharply before the tariff was suspended in 2022. In 2025, the EU threatened a 50% counter-tariff on American whiskey during a new round of trade tension before pulling back. Kentucky distillers have argued throughout that spirits should be kept out of trade fights entirely, a position the Irish and Scotch industries share.
That shared interest is one reason the whiskey trade has become a bellwether in US-Europe relations. When tariffs come off whiskey, it tends to signal a thaw. When they go on, distillers on both sides of the Atlantic are usually among the first to feel it.
Four Questions the Formal Notice Will Have to Answer
Which products are covered?
Irish whiskey is a legally defined category, and the US trade schedule groups whiskies under specific customs codes. The notice will have to spell out exactly which products qualify. Irish cream liqueurs, poitín and Irish gin, for example, are all spirits from Ireland that are not whiskey, and whether any of them benefit will depend entirely on how the text is drafted.
When does it take effect?
The Scotch exemption applied from a fixed date going forward. Irish distillers and their American importers will be watching to see whether the Irish relief follows the same model, which would mean no refunds on duty already paid on bottles imported since the September announcement.
Does it stand alone?
The Irish government is treating the whiskey relief as a technical implementation question. Brussels is treating it as something to be measured against the EU's single trade policy. Whether the final instrument is written as a narrow Ireland-specific carve-out or folded into a wider US-EU arrangement will shape how other member states respond.
Who is next?
France has already made its case for cognac and Champagne. Other EU spirits producers, from Italian amaro makers to Dutch genever distillers, have every reason to make the same argument. Each new request adds pressure on Washington to either widen the relief or explain why Ireland is different.
What American Drinkers Should Expect
For now, nothing has changed at the register. Irish whiskey imported into the US is still paying the 10% duty, and how much of that cost reaches shelf prices depends on importers, distributors and retailers. When the exemption is formally implemented, the effect on prices is unlikely to be immediate or uniform. Inventory already in the country was imported under the current rate, and companies that absorbed part of the tariff rather than passing it on may use the relief to rebuild margins instead of cutting prices.
The bigger shift may be competitive. Removing the duty would put Irish whiskey back on the same footing as Scotch and Northern Irish whiskey in the American market, ending an imbalance that has favored distillers on one side of the border.
What remains unknown is the date. The Irish government is pressing for speed, Brussels is waiting to see the text, Paris is lining up behind Dublin, and the Irish Whiskey Association is counting the weeks against the UK precedent. Until the formal notice is published, the president's promise on the 18th green is still just that.
