Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney is to meet US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to press for the reduction or removal of a 10% tariff on Scotch whisky imports, officials said.
Swinney is asking that Scotch be exempted from the tariff on the grounds it would benefit both Scottish distillers and US suppliers, including cooperages that export bourbon barrels used to mature Scotch. The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) has estimated the tariffs are costing the industry about £4 million a week and said the US market, which accounted for about a fifth of Scotch exports and was worth £971 million in 2024, faces damage unless charges are eased.
The first minister will be accompanied to the White House by the UK’s ambassador to the United States, Lord Peter Mandelson. Swinney is also staying with Mandelson while in Washington. Media attention on Mandelson’s past acquaintance with Jeffrey Epstein has prompted questions about the arrangement; a spokesman for Swinney declined to comment on whether the first minister was comfortable staying with Mandelson or whether he would raise the issue at a scheduled breakfast meeting. Mandelson has said he "very much regrets" ever having been introduced to Epstein.
Swinney’s lobbying is understood to have the support of the UK government, which formally conducts trade negotiations with the United States. The 10% tariff was applied earlier this year to most UK goods entering the US under arrangements reached between the governments; that level is 5 percentage points lower than the rate applied to goods entering the US from the European Union, British officials said. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his team are seeking further concessions in advance of the president’s state visit to the UK from Sept. 17 to 19.
The SWA said the tariffs could cost the Scotch industry about £200 million a year and warned they also harm US producers. Graeme Littlejohn, the SWA director, told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland that US cooperages and distributors were losing business as a result of reduced Scotch shipments and that over the course of a second Trump term some $1.2 billion of old bourbon barrels had been expected to go to Scottish distilleries.
The tariff is levied on US importers, who frequently pass some or all of the added cost on to American customers. The SWA said the combination of higher prices and reduced demand was already weighing on Scotch sales in the US and on related trade with suppliers and hospitality businesses there.
Swinney first raised the issue with Trump during a July meeting at the president’s Aberdeenshire golf resort, where Trump said he had not realised whisky was at stake but agreed to a further discussion. On his return flight to Washington, Trump played down the extent of those talks. It is not yet clear whether any change to the existing US-UK trade arrangements will be announced during the upcoming state visit.
Officials said other international issues could also be discussed during the Oval Office meeting. Reports indicated Senator Marco Rubio would accompany the president to the discussion. Swinney visited New York in April during Tartan Week and has made trade promotion for Scotch whisky a recurring theme of his visits to the United States this year.
The outcome of the Washington meeting will be closely watched by distillers on both sides of the Atlantic and by UK ministers negotiating broader trade terms with the United States ahead of high-level UK-US engagements next week.