Alcohol became a flashpoint in the US-Canada trade war. Now both sides say they're losing.

Alcohol makers in the US and Canada say they're hurting as a result of the trade war.

John Fedele/Getty Images The US-Canada trade war escalated on Saturday with new 50% tariffs on Canadian alcohol.

American booze was pulled from Canadian shelves last year and remains restricted in most of Canada.

Alcohol makers in the US and Canada say both industries are hurting.

What started as an eye-catching retaliation tactic to tariffs has become a sticking point in the US-Canada trade war — and neither side is standing down.

The booze battle began last year after President Donald Trump imposed broad 25% tariffs on Canadian goods.

Canada responded with its own 25% retaliatory tariffs targeting alcohol, among other products.

The country's provinces went further, pulling American alcohol from shelves and halting new purchases or distribution.

A year and a half later, American alcohol remains shut out of much of Canada.

The boycott was so effective that Trump cited it as a driving force for his latest tariffs, including a 50% tariff on alcohol from Canada that took effect on Saturday after talks between the two countries broke down.

While there's been plenty of finger-pointing about who started what, alcohol industries on both sides of the border say they're losing.

"Our industry is really just an unfortunate victim," Chris Swonger, CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, said.

"It's been devastating for the US industry over the last year and a half, and it's going to be significantly devastating for the Canadian spirits industry, but it'll trickle down and have an effect all the way from bartenders to our distributor partners to retailers to the American hospitality economy." Alcohol represents just a tiny sliver of the hundreds of billions of dollars in goods traded between the US and Canada, but the impact of the trade war on the industry has been especially severe and visible, in part due to the outright bans as well as the direct impact on beloved alcohol brands.

For alcohol makers, the industry is also an unusual target for a trade war that's partially aimed at shifting manufacturing back to the US.