• Donald Trump's aggressive tariff strategy has caused the market and consumers to recoil in shock.
• While the market contracts, one niche segment may have a narrow opening: regional winemakers.
• Some producers may see a renaissance as consumers look for alternatives to their imported favorites.

Alcohol consumption is down across the board, and President Donald Trump's aggressive tariff strategy has struck a hard blow to the US economy, causing the market and consumers to recoil in shock. However, 2025 may not be a total loss for one niche segment in the booze industry.

Small California winemakers are waiting with bated breath to see if they could be one of the few lucky winners of Trump's unconventional trade policy.

"There's a potential upside for us here," Nicholas Miller, the vice president of sales and marketing for Miller Family Wine Company, told Business Insider. "The US wine industry has been in a cycle of being severely oversupplied for the last couple of years — but that's also been when there's a big global market coming in."

As the largest global consumer market for wine, the US is among the most desirable locations for any producer looking to sell their goods, Miller said. Hence, the market has, in recent years, been oversaturated by imported wines. But Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs slapped blanket 10% fees on any goods imported into the country — 20% from major wine importers like Italy and France — and Miller said that could "level the playing field" for domestic vintners.

"If tariffs do indeed slow down imports and make them less competitive, I can see that there would be an upside for domestic wines in that case," Miller said.

Industry insiders told Business Insider that ultra-premium wine producers likely won't see the same potential benefits from Trump's tariff plan that lower-tier producers might because too much of their business lies in exports, which have been disrupted. The wealthiest buyers also likely won't be significantly deterred by price hikes on their favorite French and Italian imports or will drink from their private reserves while waiting for the trade madness to subside.

"For the high-end collector, the wine connoisseur, someone with a high wine IQ, for them, those flavors are not fungible," Miller said. "Their favorite is not replaced by a domestic wine just because it's the same price point."

Similarly, bottom-tier suppliers may lose some business because the lowest-income households could simply stop buying any wine, as it's a luxury they don't need amid the economic turmoil. Still, mid-range varietals, like those abundant in California, have a narrow opportunity to gain ground, both in direct sales and tourism to the region.

"I feel like if people are pulling their purse strings because of their worries about the economy, then they would typically — and we saw this certainly during COVID but for other different reasons — choose to come to Santa Barbara County versus taking European vacations," Scott Bull, owner of Sustainable Wine Tours in Santa Barbara, California, told BI. "If we're talking about wine enthusiasts in general, we've seen they will turn to the California market to visit their local backyard rather than taking these extravagant trips."

A boon for mid-market producers

California produces an average of 81% of total US wine, employs 1.1 million Americans, and generates $170.5 billion in annual economic activity across the country, according to data from the Wine Institute. The famous Napa Valley, located northeast of San Francisco, is a major tourism draw, as is Santa Barbara County on the Central Coast and the Southern California wine region of the Temecula Valley.

"For us, certainly during COVID, and we're hoping maybe again now, is that we got the Los Angeles market and all these other people who typically would go overseas to look for those fine wines, instead coming into our backyard," Bull said. "And they realize that we have some extraordinary wines here that really offer the same type of quality or even higher quality, and that really offer everything they're looking for, from Burgundy to Bordeaux varietals. And so I think this could be that new introduction point."

Of course, Trump's tariffs do not mean it's all smooth sailing for mid-range producers. They still have to contend with the rising costs of imported goods they rely on for production — barrels, corks, and glass for their wine bottles are all seeing significant price jumps — and their export businesses are on the rocks.

"The tariffs have also killed any chance of exporting for domestic wine producers," Mike Officer, cofounder of Carlisle Winery, an ultra-premium Sonoma County zinfandel producer, told Business Insider. "After California, Canada and Denmark were our largest distribution channels. Those markets no longer exist for us."

Still, Trump's tariffs still represent a window of opportunity for some regional winemakers.

"I do think, potentially, the sweet spot is for that mid-market producer," Miller said. "For the largest players in central California, there also could be an opportunity open up the market where previously they were getting undercut."

The opportunity may not be limited to California winemakers. Other regional consumer goods, often regarded as modest luxuries compared to mass-produced big-brand products or fancy artisan imports — like Hawaiian coffee — could also see an increase in consumer interest amid Trump's burgeoning trade war.

Alexandre Bossard, the general manager of Kauai Coffee, told BI the current global trade dynamics represent "both challenges and opportunities" that Hawaiian coffee growers are monitoring closely.

And while it's too soon to know exactly how it will all shake out, California's regional winemakers are cautiously optimistic that they can avoid the worst impacts of Trump's trade war.

"It actually levels the playing field in a way that I think could be great for us," Bull said.

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• The war in Ukraine is showing the power of weaponry once thought outdated.
• Mines and artillery have proven essential, alongside cutting-edge tech like AI and drones.
• One expert told BI that mines and shells are "useful, even dominant" when armies are dug in.

The war in Ukraine is showing that weapons once thought redundant remain indispensable — and NATO countries are playing catch-up as they race to rearm.

Last week, Finland became the latest European country to repeal a decades-old ban on the use of anti-personnel land mines. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have already announced they were abandoning the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, which prohibited the use, manufacture, and sale of anti-personnel land mines.

The countries are gearing up to fortify their borders with Russia using land mines as the Kremlin refocuses its economy on its military and relations with the West deteriorate.

While the war includes examples of cutting-edge technology, it also underlines the importance of weapons like shells and mines.

As Europe enters "an era of rearmament," it's learning it needs to invest in technology it previously thought would be redundant in fast-moving, tech-heavy wars they envisaged would define the 21st century.

Ukraine has used mines to slow the larger Russian army's advances in the east and south of the country to a stalemate and to channel enemy troops into areas that its forces can defend.

While the sophisticated precision-guided missiles NATO has provided Ukraine are susceptible to Russian electronic jamming that scrambles the signals used to guide them, comparatively crude — and cheap — shells don't have this drawback.

Ukraine's European allies have boosted shell production. But last week, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, US Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Russia was on track to build a shell stockpile "three times greater than the United States and Europe combined."

In a recent paper, the Royal United Services Institute, a UK defense think tank, said European governments had expected private sector defense firms to "solve the problem" of ammunition production but failed to introduce "any incentives or a regulatory environment that would allow it to do so."

Nato had been planning for a different war

Paul van Hooft, a defense research leader at the UK-based think tank RAND Europe, told BI that the threat from Russia was very different from what Western military leaders had planned for.

"For three decades, as Western militaries were not focused on large-scale land warfare and territorial-NATO collective defense, these weapons [such as shells and land mines] were not considered as valuable — specifically in Western Europe," he told BI by email.

After the 9/11 attacks, NATO allies planned for wars against militias such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, where land mines and shells had little obvious use, said van Hooft.

But fighting a land war against a large army requires defending and holding large swaths of territory.

Artillery may be old technology but it's more effective when used alongside newer surveillance tech like drones, said Van Hooft.

Mark Cancian, a senior advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies Defense and Security Department in Washington, DC, said that as the war in Ukraine has become more static, shells and land mines have once again been proven indispensable.

"These weapons become useful, even dominant, whenever the front lines stabilize," he said. "They are difficult to employ when armies are maneuvering but easy to employ when armies stalemate and dig in."

In Ukraine, drones have been used to surveil battlefields, identify troops gatherings or command posts — and pinpoint positions to target with artillery barrages.

Cancian cautioned against military planners becoming "enamored with flashy concepts of future warfare" as billions are poured into European defense budgets and military tech startups compete for business selling cutting-edge drones and AI-integrated weapons.

"Artillery-firing, unguided munitions are still critical," he said, adding, "Notions that the next war would be fought by small teams firing precision munitions has not turned out to be the case."

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• My grandfather's mindset about ownership left a lasting mark on me.
• He believed ownership was about freedom. He saved diligently and prioritized security over luxury.
• My goal is to own enough so I never feel like another holds the keys to my freedom. I've succeeded.

My grandfather was born and spent his young adult life under Portugal's Estado Novo dictatorship, which ended in 1974.

He saw firsthand how financial insecurity could be used as a weapon — loans denied, costs inflated, and livelihoods threatened based on arbitrary labels of unreliability, like involvement in union organizing.

For him, ownership wasn't just about accumulating assets; it was about gaining a sense of freedom and security in an otherwise authoritarian environment.

His mindset about ownership left a lasting mark on me and governed how I've approached my career and finances my whole life.

From the time I was a young boy, my grandfather would stress the importance of not being owned and being your own master. He lived by this principle, working tirelessly and being prudent in his spending.

Thanks to those lessons, I welcomed my newborn son into the world without financial anxiety.

I learned financial responsibility from my grandfather and mother

My grandfather saved diligently throughout his life. Family vacations were rare and always on a tight budget. He only allowed expensive food like cheese, red meat, and olives during Christmas.

He launched multiple businesses in port operations and financial services, ventures that remain in our family. He invested in financial markets, real estate, and his cherished coins and stamps while spending most of his life debt-free.

His daughter — my mother — received the same lessons growing up. After the dictatorship ended, while many of her peers were taking advantage of cheap credit to buy new cars and other status symbols, she taught me one of my first finance lessons: A car is a mobility solution.

If I can buy a car for $10,000 and I choose a $20,000 model, I'm not just buying transportation — I'm spending $10,000 on a luxury upgrade.

She wasn't telling me this was a dumb purchase. She was giving me a crucial sense of perspective that I've kept with me ever since.

How I grew my own financial safety net

When I was old enough, I left Madeira Island and traveled all over Portugal for the next eight years but always with the goal of making it back home.

I started my business career while traveling in Portugal. Like my grandfather, I've launched multiple businesses to build wealth and increase my future freedom in Portugal.

Some of those ventures — like the tutoring program and tourist activities businesses — flopped. Others are holding strong, like my consultancy and real estate businesses.

While getting into the startup business can be risky, I always approached my ventures with limited risk exposure in mind.

When borrowing funds, I did it in controlled amounts. I used credit lines for young investors that required no personal guarantees and could only claim the funds my business partners and I had already committed to the business.

I am debt-free

I've never had credit card debt or taken out a car loan. Up until last year, my only debt was my home mortgage, but I decided to pay my 30-year mortgage off early.

Shortly after returning home to Madeira in 2016, my wife and I bought our first house. Eager to start a place of our own and start building our life, we moved quickly — completing the entire process of buying, restoring, and moving in within just six months of returning to the island.

The lesson my grandfather valued and repeated the most was that you should own your home outright.

To him, a house wasn't just a place to live — it was a shield against uncertainty, a guarantee that no matter what happened, his family would always have a roof over their heads.

He worked hard and saved relentlessly to buy his home. He prioritized security over luxury. And because of his influence, it became my priority, too.

Yes, if I had chosen to invest instead of aggressively paying off my mortgage in seven years, my net worth might be higher. However, owning my home outright has given me something far more valuable: the feeling of freedom and accomplishment.

Deciding to rent or keep a mortgage was often framed to me as a way to maximize financial performance through time — an Excel problem to be solved. However, my home means more than just numbers on a spreadsheet.

At this stage in my life, I am debt-free, which gives me the flexibility to combine my funds with strategic borrowing to invest in worthwhile opportunities.

More importantly, I have the peace of mind to raise my newborn son without financial stress.

My goal has never been to chase billions or endlessly accumulate wealth

My goal has been to build a life where I have enough to own what I call mine, and enough to never feel like someone else holds the keys to my freedom.

I have been able to return from mainland Portugal to my home island, live unburdened by debt, travel frequently with my family, pick up new hobbies, and choose my career path based on passion rather than financial reward.

Time has shown that this was the right decision for my family. Owning my freedom — financially and personally — has been worth more than any investment return.

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