美威士忌协会：加拿大禁令致对加出口额同比降70%

Michael Bilello, president and CEO of the American Whiskey Association. Michael, great to have you with us here. I wanna just ask you about the state of play. We don't have to get into the granular details here because we don't really know a whole lot about what happened with with the talks. But when you look at the the business that you represent, what has the last year plus meant for them not having access as they had before to the the Canadian market?

Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Obviously, we didn't get the breakthrough we were all hoping for this morning. So for American whiskey producers, this remains unfinished business. As you pointed out, for a year and a half now, American whiskey has all been basically shut out for most of the provinces in Canada. And this is something that affects the entire American whiskey supply chain. So not just the distillers, but all the way down to the Cooper's and also the the grain farmers.

So, obviously, we're hoping for a breakthrough. We're hoping for a deal. We're hoping to regain access to the Canadian market. Then we were hoping that the provinces would align with the federal government and allow us to have access to the shelves, And we were really looking forward to reconnecting with our Canadian consumer, but, obviously, that's not happening. How big of a part of the business is this that you're losing, either in a percentage or a dollar amount?

Like, how big of a hunk of what you would usually sell is not there at the moment? Well, I'll point to the White House figures that were shared. So in 2024, when the provincial restrictions went in effect, you had a market that was about $203,000,000 when you when you measure that from March 2024 when it went to effect to December. When you look at the same year over year comparison, it was down to 60,000,000. So roughly a 70% decrease in US spirit exports to Canada.

And by the way, American whiskey is about over a billion dollar export for The US economy. So at the same time, by the way, American whiskey and US spirits exports grew by about two and a half percent everywhere else except Canada. So to put things in perspective, this this prohibit prohibit prohibiting American whiskey on those those shelves really did have an impact on the category, but also US spirits in general. Mike, let me just ask you about the quality of conversation you've been having, you know, with American leadership, Canadian leadership all all through this.

I I imagine, you know, many groups affected by these tariffs have been trying to bend the ear of the White House and The US trade representative likely trying to do the same thing with their Canadian counterparts. How engaged have you been in the process? What have those conversations been like? Well, I could say what's really special about the spirits industry is globally, we are very connected. We see this as one ecosystem.

So we are all about fair market access, competition. We want the world's whiskeys to compete, but we really do focus on market access and fair competition. So as an industry, we've always been very united and aligned on what we're looking for globally in terms of of trade policy. When we look at the the the Trump administration and our counterparts in Canada, we're obviously equally engaged on both sides, and we were always taking part in constructive conversations and and making sure parties were aligned and the impact was was known and understood on both sides.

Because remember something, The United States and Canada, we are part of the same North American hospitality ecosystem. So this didn't just have an impact on The US side. It also impacted the Canadian side of things. So, again, the industry always connected, always sharing information. We we're always focused on market access. And then for both the US government and the Canadian government, they've always been engaged and really, you know, looking at the the trade officials and the people who are really doing the hard work behind the scenes, those lines were open.

Communication was flowing. We received good indications yesterday. There was progress being made. So, obviously, to learn about this late last night or early this morning was really unfortunate. Michael, it seems to me like you have two problems. You have the actual policy issue, but then you have a branding issue now. We had a producer who was recently in Canada and was telling us all of the shops are labeling Canadian made products, and there is still this impetus to buy Canadian.

Even if you get these products back on the shelves, Canadians are really annoyed. They're very mad. Do you think you have some work to do on the PR front to try to convince those folks to buy American products when they are kind of furious about how this all went down? Yeah. Really an astute observation. So, essentially, when you're not on a shelf for a year and a half, right, you're out of sight, out of mind. So from a marketing, and branding, scenario, that's not the best place to be in.

Yeah. It's it's one of those things where, you know, there's a three step process that we're really focused on here. One was gaining market access to Canada, and, obviously, that's what we were hoping the negotiations between president Trump and prime minister Kearny would result in. Step two then, because the provinces control the liquor boards and really the shelves, we're hoping step two would result in the provincial authorities to align with the federal government and give us access to those shelves.

And then step three, which is the point you just made, is reconnecting and reuniting with the Canadian consumer. And that's probably about fifty fifty right now. Like, we've heard from Canadian consumers, a lot of the bourbon enthusiasts who are very excited to be able to go to the stores this morning and purchase a bottle of American bourbon or or American whiskey in in general. But then, obviously, there's also a group out there of Canadians who were really annoyed, disappointed, or frustrated with the relationship with The United States, and and that's understandable as well.

So all we continue to advocate for is access to the Canadian market, access to the shelves, and the ability to reunite with the Canadian consumer. And to your point, we know that's gonna take some time, but Canadians should have the choice, to choose American whiskey. And we want all American whiskeys to compete there. But the fact of the matter is we haven't been able to compete because we've been kept out of the competition altogether.

Picking up on this last question, and Christine has been out to Kentucky recently, done a piece on on the bourbon industry. I I'm curious what sort of the history and symbolism here and how you think about it in the context of this. Look. So many products are subject to these tariffs now. Why is it you think that American whiskey has been signaled out in the way in which it has? Why does it carry such symbolic value or significance in the context of this trade war?

American whiskey is a quintessential American product. Right? We're celebrating America's two hundred and fiftieth. We look at George Washington, not only one of our, you know, great American president, but also a great American distiller. And this is a product that has a long supply chain. Right? Again, it starts with American farmers who grow American grain. Then it goes to lumber, right, in Cooper's, the the the the industry that makes the barrels, and then you have the distillers.

So this is a symbolic American product. When you look at what American whiskey makes up in this larger US Canadian trade deal, it's it's very minuscule. It's it's it's not a lot. Mhmm. But the symbology here, right, it became the symbol of the trade tension. It became the symbol of the dispute. You know, there was perfectly good whiskey being poured out into the streets, which which is a total sin in my opinion. So it became symbolic.

It became a sy