At a wine shop in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, bottles sourced from Europe are becoming costlier to import — and soon, pricier for customers to buy, the owner says — thanks to a resident just down the road in the White House.President Donald Trump has slapped a 15-percent tariff on many goods coming from the European Union, as part of a deal the bloc negotiated to avoid even steeper levies.The continent’s important wine and spirits industry hoped to have a carveout, but details released Thursday showed no exemption to the double-digit duty.The new EU rate took effect this month, replacing a 10-percent levy Trump imposed in April on most trading partners. But even the lower tariff has forced importers to hike prices — and retailers are feeling the pinch.”Everybody’s redoing their price books at this point,” said Michael Warner, co-owner of wine boutique DCanter in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.He told AFP that price increases from importers and distributors became apparent around June, ranging from 10-15 percent.Over 80 percent of wine in Warner’s store is imported, with about two-thirds from Europe.Businesses may have stocked up to mitigate a price shock from Trump’s duties, but inventory is depleting.As the euro strengthened against the dollar this year too, Warner said many importers “are seeing a 20-percent swing in their costs.” “As more and more importers are increasing their costs, we see that there will be more and more price increases, certainly in the next coming months and going into the holiday season,” he said.- No ‘special treatment’ -EU negotiators have sought to exempt alcohol such as Irish whiskey and French champagne from Trump’s tariffs, but their efforts have been fruitless so far.The bloc’s trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic maintained Thursday that “these doors are not closed forever,” although the French wine exporters federation said it was “hugely disappointed” in the outcomes.A White House official told AFP that the Trump administration “did not agree to any special treatment of EU alcohol” as part of the tariff deal, when asked about the final text of the pact this week.US Wine Trade Alliance president Ben Aneff argues, however, that his country has “a huge economic surplus on the sale of wines from the EU.”The American wine industry generally operates in a tiered system, where foreign producers sell to importers, who then sell to distributors. They in turn sell to retailers and restaurants.”For every dollar we spend in the European Union on wine, we make $4.52,” Aneff said of the economic impact of the wine changing hands through the supply chain.He estimates the United States buys some $5.3 billion worth of wine annually from the EU: “But that makes us about $24 billion in the United States.”The industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in importing and distribution, alongside tens of thousands of independent wine retailers — who in turn sell to consumers.”There’s no guarantee there will be an exclusion but we do know it’s something that the administration is considering seriously,” Aneff said.- ‘Extraordinarily trying time’ -Harry Root, who operates a wine distribution and import company with his wife, said they have paid “more than $100,000 worth of tariffs already this year.””We made less than $400,000 last year, so this is already like a 25-percent tax on our business,” he said. His firm, Grassroots Wine, serves South Carolina and Alabama.The funds to pay tariffs, according to Root, come from business capital that otherwise would have gone to wine makers, including dozens in the United States.”It puts a big strain on our ability to support our American producers,” he said.US wine producers also rely on imported components ranging from bottles made in Asia to barrels from Europe — and tariffs raise those costs too.While Root has not laid off staff, he has delayed replacing workers who left — departing from ambitious growth plans at the start of the year to expand the business.”Once the tariffs really became a reality, we curtailed that,” he said, adding that the company has had to cut costs.”This is a really, extraordinarily trying time.”

Erik Menendez was denied parole Thursday more than three decades after he and his brother Lyle slaughtered their parents in the family’s luxury Beverly Hills home.A California panel ordered the 54-year-old to stay in prison, defying a lengthy campaign waged by family, friends and celebrities like Kim Kardashian.”Erik Menendez was denied parole for three years at his initial suitability hearing today,” said a brief statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).The result will be a huge blow to a movement that has swelled in recent years, nourished by documentaries and TV dramas, including the smash Netflix hit “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”The show and other productions have fixated on the grisly details of the 1989 shotgun murders and the televised jury trial that captivated audiences with accounts of their abusive upbringings and posh lifestyles.Thursday’s hearing came 36 years and a day after his family learned of his parents’ deaths, Erik Menendez told the parole board.”Today is the day all my victims learned my parents were dead,” he said during the 10-hour hearing. “So today is the anniversary of their trauma journey.”The parole denial comes the day before Lyle Menendez, 57, will appear before a panel to ask them to release him from prison.”This is a tragic case,” parole commissioner Robert Barton said after the decision was issued. “I agree that not only two, but four people, were lost in this family.”More than a dozen relatives testified to say they’ve forgiven the Menendez brothers, as they came to be known, and to call for their release.”Two things can be true,” Barton said. “They can love and forgive you and you can still be found unsuitable for parole.”- ‘Mafia hit’ -The men are among America’s most celebrated prisoners, and the stars of one of the first-ever televised murder trials.Jurors in the 1990s were told how the men killed Jose and Kitty Menendez in what prosecutors said was a cynical attempt to get their hands on a large family fortune.After setting up alibis and trying to cover their tracks, Erik and Lyle shot Jose Menendez five times with shotguns, including in the kneecaps.Kitty Menendez died from a shotgun blast as she tried desperately to crawl away from her killers.The brothers initially blamed the deaths on a mafia hit, but changed their story several times in the ensuing months.Erik, then 18, confessed to the murders in a session with his therapist.The pair ultimately claimed they had acted in self-defense after years of emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of a tyrannical father.During their decades in prison, changing social mores and greater awareness of sexual abuse helped elevate the men to something approaching cultural icons.- ‘Horrific’ -Thursday’s hearing, which was closed to the public, was expected to last just two to three hours.Instead, it went on all day.Erik Menendez appeared by video link from the San Diego prison where he and his brother are being held.Two or three panel members, whose identity was not released by CDCR, quizzed him on his behavior and attitude towards the murders.The parole hearing became possible when a judge earlier this year resentenced the men, reducing their original full-life tariff to one of 50 years with the possibility of release.Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman opposed resentencing, and said he would oppose parole.He has insisted that the men’s shifting explanations for the double deaths — they gave five different accounts in the course of the murder investigation — means they have not truly admitted their guilt.”The Menendez brothers have never fully accepted responsibility for the horrific murders of their parents,” Hochman said in a statement Wednesday.Lyle’s hearing on Friday is independent of his brother’s.

US Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell is expected to walk a fine line while delivering a closely watched speech at a central banking conference on Friday, as he faces down attacks from President Donald Trump alongside mixed economic data.The US central bank chair may have used his keynote speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium last year to indicate the time had come for interest rate cuts — but analysts warn there is a murkier picture this time around.”The Fed is in a tough position as inflation remains above target and downside risks to the labor market are intensifying,” said Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics.Powell is due to deliver his final Jackson Hole speech as Fed chair at 10:00 am Eastern Time (1400 GMT) on Friday. His term at the helm ends in May 2026.”Whether they cut or not in September will likely hinge on data that Powell won’t have in hand” at the symposium, Sweet told AFP.Yet, the independent Fed has come under intensifying pressure from the Trump administration this year to lower rates.- ‘No intention of being bullied’ -Trump has made no secret of his disdain for Powell, repeatedly saying that the Fed chair has been “too late” in lowering interest rates while calling him a “numbskull” and “moron.”The president has also taken aim at Powell over the Fed’s headquarters renovation in Washington, suggesting that cost overruns could be cause for ousting the central banker.Trump eventually backed off the idea but this week separately called for the resignation of a Fed governor, Lisa Cook, over claims of mortgage fraud. Cook pushed back, saying in a statement that she had “no intention of being bullied to step down” while adding that she would take questions about her financial history seriously.- Jobs, inflation risks -“We expect Powell to comment on both the latest jobs data and the latest inflation data before putting into context an assessment of appropriate monetary policy,” HSBC US economist Ryan Wang said in a note.The Fed, which holds its next policy meeting in mid-September, has kept interest rates steady at a range of between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent since its last reduction in December.In keeping rates unchanged, policymakers cited resilience in the labor market as they monitored the effects of Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs on the world’s biggest economy.Higher tariffs on imports risk fueling price hikes, according to analysts. The Fed typically keeps interest rates at a higher level to sustainably rein in inflation.The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge rose 2.6 percent in June from a year ago, and a measure stripping out the volatile food and energy segments was higher at 2.8 percent. Both figures are above the Fed’s longer-term target of two percent.But cracks have meanwhile emerged in the jobs market, which could call for lower rates to boost the economy.Official employment data released this month showed that hiring in May and June was much weaker than originally estimated.Hours after the data was released, Trump ordered the firing of the commissioner of labor statistics, eventually picking an economist from a right-wing think tank as her replacement.Softening employment has raised concern among officials, with Fed governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman voting against the overall decision in July to hold rates steady for a fifth straight meeting.Both had preferred to lower interest rates by 25 basis points. It was the first time since 1993 that two Fed governors dissented.According to minutes of the meeting released Wednesday, Bowman argued that gradually reducing rates would help hedge against further cooling in the economy and the risk of damage to the labor market.Fed officials remain divided on whether Trump’s tariffs would have a one-off effect on inflation or cause more persistent effects.For now, CME Group’s FedWatch Tool shows the market sees a 73.5-percent chance that the Fed will lower rates in September. “With more employment data to come, we don’t think Powell can firmly guide toward easing at the next meeting,” JPMorgan analysts said in a recent note.

Shipping Nvidia’s H20 chips to China was “great” for Beijing and Washington and not a security threat, the tech giant’s chief said Friday.  The California-based company produces some of the world’s most advanced semiconductors but cannot ship its most cutting-edge chips to China due to concerns from Washington that Beijing could use them to enhance military capabilities.Nvidia developed the H20 — a less powerful version of its AI processing units — specifically for export to China. That plan stalled when the Trump administration tightened export licensing requirements in April.The H20 was “not a national security concern”, Jensen Huang told reporters in Taipei, describing the chip as “great for America” and “great for the Chinese market”.Huang insisted there were “no security backdoors” in the H20 chip allowing remote access, after China summoned company representatives to discuss security issues. “We have made very clear and put to rest that H20 has no security backdoors, there are no such things, there never has, and so hopefully the response that we’ve given to the Chinese government will be sufficient,” Huang said.He sidestepped a question about reports that Nvidia would pay the United States 15 percent of its revenues from the sale of H20 chips to China, which US President Donald Trump confirmed last week.Instead, Huang expressed gratitude to the Trump administration for allowing the chips to be shipped to the Chinese market. “The demand I believe is quite great and so the ability to ship products to, H20s to China, is very much appreciated,” the CEO said.Huang also said Nvidia is in talks with the US government about a new chip for China.”Offering a new product to China for the data center, AI data centers, the follow on to H20, that’s not our decision to make. It’s up to of course the United States government, and we’re in dialogue with them but it’s too soon to know,” he said.Huang met with Trump at the White House this month and agreed to give the federal government the cut from its revenues, a highly unusual arrangement in the international tech trade, according to reports in the Financial Times, Bloomberg and The New York Times.Investors are betting that AI will transform the global economy, and last month Nvidia — the world’s most valuable company and a leading designer of high-end AI chips — became the first company ever to hit $4 trillion in market value.The firm has, however, become entangled in trade tensions between China and the United States, which are waging a heated battle for dominance to produce the chips that power AI.It comes as the Trump administration has been imposing stiff tariffs, with goals varying from addressing US trade imbalances, wanting to reshore manufacturing and pressuring foreign governments to change policies.A 100 percent tariff on many semiconductor imports came into effect this month, with exceptions for tech companies that announce major investments in the United States.