St. Patrick’s Day is peak Guinness season, but American tariff proposals threaten to put a damper on the fun. Dublin bureau reporter Olivia Fletcher and New York podcast producer Stacey Vanek Smith—who both know their way around an Irish pub—bring us an update on the outlook for celebrations in honor of the Emerald Isle’s patron saint. Plus: Snap’s CEO on why its Spectacles are the superior tech glasses, and the long, sometimes dark, history of “Buy American.”

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day! In Ireland and around the world, it’s customary to enjoy the holiday with friends, family and—often—a tumbler of Irish whiskey or a pint of stout raised to cries of “sláinte,” or “good health” in Irish. For Americans, those cheers could become yelps of pain if US President Donald Trump makes good on his threat to impose a 200% tax on alcoholic drinks from the European Union. That could spell disaster for Diageo (the maker of Guinness, Baileys, Tanqueray and dozens of other brands), Pernod Ricard (Jameson whiskey, G.H. Mumm Champagne, Martell cognac), LVMH (Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Hennessey cognac) and countless other companies.

This is what a trade war looks like. Trump has said his tariff proposal will go into effect in April unless the EU backs off its threat of a 50% import tax on US bourbon (among other things). That itself came in response to a 25% levy the Trump administration has imposed on aluminum and steel imports from the bloc. “Everyone is trying to understand the worst-case scenario, but planning is extraordinarily difficult,” says Marten Lodewijks, president of IWSR, a beverage industry consultant.

Irish whiskey sales in the US have flagged a bit in recent years, but Guinness has been on the rise—and Trump’s proposal would likely stop that cold. Lodewijks says a 25% tax on Scotch whisky during the first Trump administration in 2019 tanked sales by almost 20%. A 200% levy? “Catastrophic,” he says. “It pretty much shuts the market down.”

Whiskey at the Pernod Ricard SA bottling plant in Dublin. Photographer: Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg

The Irish whiskey lobby is urging both sides to sober up and remove alcohol from the trade spat, and European politicians are livid. France’s trade minister, Laurent Saint-Martin, has said the EU will protect its industries and won’t give in to Washington’s threats. Ireland’s prime minister, Micheal Martin, told reporters after meeting Trump at the White House last week that the bloc will craft an appropriate response. “It is a serious issue,” he said. “Europe has to be strategic in this.” 

At Molly’s Pub and Restaurant Shebeen in New York’s Gramercy Park neighborhood, shamrocks and Irish flags cover the walls, and waiters will serve up countless plates of corned beef and cabbage and Irish stew for the St. Patrick’s Day festivities. But the star of the show is Guinness: Owner Peter O’Connell expects to go through about 40 kegs today.

“It’s as good as any pint you’ll have in Ireland,” O’Connell insists. Even a 200% tariff wouldn’t make him replace Jameson or Guinness with cheaper (and American-made) alternatives. “Oh, God, no. We’re Irish!” he says. The recent surge in inflation has already forced him to increase the price of a pint of stout to $10, O’Connell says, and the new tariffs might push that to $12, but not more. “We’re a middle-of-the-road place,” he says. “How much more can a customer take?”

At least two customers—Katie and Larry Brydon—say there’s little that could steer them away from the classic Irish stout, particularly on St. Patrick’s Day. “Guinness is good for you,” Larry says, quaffing a pint at Molly’s. “It’s got antioxidants,” Katie chimes in, with a nod to her own glass. “You feel good when you drink it.”

In Brief

• Harvard University is eliminating tuition fees for students from families with incomes of $200,000 or less.
• US military strikes on the Yemen-based Houthi militants will be “unrelenting,” the Pentagon chief said.
• Fashion retailer Forever 21’s operator filed for bankruptcy after years of poor performance.

Staring Into the Future

Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel. Photographer: Jessica Chou for Bloomberg Businessweek

Evan Spiegel sees something others don’t: a neon-red flag, digitally projected on the lenses of the augmented-reality glasses he’s wearing. The co-founder and chief executive officer of Snap Inc. is at Clover Park, next to the company’s headquarters in Santa Monica, California, sporting the new Snap Spectacles. Spiegel was originally supposed to demo a basic chess app, but he decides instead that he wants to challenge me to a more complex game of capture the flag.

He guides me through the process, telling me to tap a button that appears through my own Spectacles lenses on my hand—visible to me, invisible to others—and then, from the menu now floating before my eyes, to select the app by pinching the air. We stake our 3D flags near a tree and a picnic table, set up rival bases and prepare to sprint around, using our palms to fire blasts of light at each other like Iron Man.

Or that was the idea, at least. This particular game was made by a third-party developer and is a bit more complicated to run than the chess simulator. On this hot February morning, our Spectacles are having connectivity issues outside. Spiegel switches to other still-in-development apps, called “Lenses,” including one that immerses us in a medieval village. Another Lens, from Niantic Inc.—the studio originally behind Pokémon Go—has us feeding snacks to cartoonish pets. The visuals are pretty stunning despite continued technical glitches. “Do you see my green animal?” Spiegel asks with a laugh as passersby stare blankly at the two adults in chunky black glasses, poking at the sky. “This is what I get for going off script.”

Going off script has become a habit lately for Spiegel, writes Austin Carr, who visited him as part of our A Walk With series: Snap CEO Evan Spiegel Bets Meta Can’t Copy High-Tech Glasses

‘Buy American’ Rarely Helps the Economy

Photograph by Matthew Xavier Praley for Bloomberg Businessweek

When a horde of angry colonists barged aboard ships in Boston Harbor to pitch hundreds of chests of imported tea into the water, some of them suspected they were fomenting a revolution. They probably didn’t realize they were also galvanizing a marketing campaign that would endure for centuries.

The Boston Tea Party was the pinnacle of the “nonimportation movement,” in which colonists protested British rule by boycotting goods from overseas and shaming others into doing the same. For early Americans, this outburst of economic nationalism was existential: It helped spread the view that England was an outside enemy and encouraged people to act against the country’s economic domination. More recently, the concept has been winnowed down to something pithier: Buy American.

“Buy American” campaigns with somewhat less revolutionary aims have been periodically invoked ever since. Most recently, President Donald Trump—who dubbed himself the “Buy American, Hire American” president during his first term—has countered opposition to his administration’s chaotic tariff regime by telling supporters that purchasing goods made in the US will strengthen the country. The theory behind his moves is classic protectionism: Unfettered foreign imports undermine American industry, so making those goods less desirable to consumers by raising their price safeguards high-paying US manufacturing jobs and expands the domestic economy. The logic is compelling to people on both sides of the political aisle. Lots of Americans perceive foreign goods as inferior junk anyway, so why not buy things that help our neighbors stay employed?

The question of whether Buy American campaigns actually work depends on how you define success, writes Amanda Mull in her Buying Power column: The Real Reason Trump Is Pushing ‘Buy American’

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