Trump leans on Canada to end US booze ban as sales go dry: report

President Trump is reportedly pressing Canada to lift a sweeping boycott of US-made alcohol as new data shows American distillers getting hammered by a collapse in sales north of the border.Several Canadian provinces, including Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, yanked US wine and spirits from government-run liquor stores after Trump launched a trade war last year — a move that has cost American booze makers millions of dollars in lost sales, Bloomberg News reported.US trade rep Jamieson Greer reportedly warned last month that conducting a successful review of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement — in which many products are still exempt from US tariffs — hinged on provinces lifting their US booze bans Brown-Forman, the maker of Jack Daniel’s, told Bloomberg that its Canadian organic net sales plunged more than 60% in the first half of its 2026 fiscal year, with Chief Executive Officer Lawson Whiting calling the boycott “worse than a tariff.”Smaller producers have been hit even harder.Minnesota-based Phillips Distilling said its Canadian sales dropped by roughly 70%, forcing the company to shift production of its Sour Puss brand to a contract manufacturer in Montreal to keep supplying the market.Phillips Distilling CEO Andrew England told Bloomberg News that the loss amounted to about 15% of the company’s branded business.“It was very frustrating,” he was quoted as saying.“If you take away 15% of our branded business, that’s a big problem.”England added that he had “no idea how this is going to settle out with the US and Canada, which is why we need to operate separately in Canada, and just get on with it.”Jim Beam paused production at its main US distillery after weakening demand led to a glut of unsold whiskey, though the company did not cite the Canadian boycott as one of the reasons for the move.“The provinces’ continued removal of U.S.

spirits from retail shelves is deeply damaging to American distillers,” said Chris Swonger, pr...