“It’s an actual pity,” laments Antonio Rummo of Donald Trump’s newest goal in his ever-evolving tariff warfare: Italian pasta. Rummo is the sixth-generation grandson of the founding father of Pasta Rummo, who opened a wheat mill in Benevento in southern Italy in 1846, utilizing the household’s three horses to lug grain from the encircling Campania area and Puglia to supply contemporary pasta.
“Demand for premium pasta within the US has been rising,” says Rummo. Appreciated by customers for a conventional processing technique that ensures it’ll prepare dinner to al dente perfection, gross sales of Pasta Rummo have been thriving.
“Our model has grown particularly quick during the last six years, one thing that took us abruptly, however which have been are very happy with,” he mentioned, however he fears the US president’s tariffs might put paid to that.
Italian meals producers had thought the worst was behind them when Trump agreed in August to cut back tariffs on imports of EU items to a flat charge of 15%, and had been hoping his pleasant relations with the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, would defend them from any additional turbulence.
Not so. The world of pasta, a staple of Italy’s culinary heritage, has been thrown into disarray after Washington threatened to whack one other 92% on a few of the nation’s oldest pasta producers in what the Italian media has declared “Trump’s warfare in opposition to pasta”.
Rummo says Pasta Rummo sells for about $4 (£3) a packet, however the value might double if the extra tariffs are utilized.
The additional duties, poised to take impact in January, are the results of an investigation by the US Division of Commerce into dumping practices, whereby international corporations export items at costs decrease than within the home market to achieve benefit over native opponents.
The investigation, pushed by US rivals, particularly focused the producers La Molisana and Garofalo, given their quantity of US gross sales, however by dint of affiliation has left 11 different prime Italian pasta manufacturers, together with the family-run Barilla and Pasta Rummo, within the line of fireplace.
Italy’s pasta exports have been price greater than €4bn (£3.5bn) in 2024, with the US among the many prime three locations.
The punitive end result is proving troublesome to digest for the Italian pasta makers, that are all making ready to take authorized motion. Giuseppe Ferro, the chief govt of La Molisana, which has been making pasta since 1912, advised the Italian press the dumping accusations have been unfounded and that he hoped Trump’s authorities would change its thoughts as a result of in any other case “it could be unimaginable for us to work”.
The tariffs are regarded as meant to encourage Italian producers to arrange factories within the US, a technique that seems to have led to investments in different industries similar to prescription drugs.
La Molisana denied rumours that it could relent, whereas Emidio Mansi, the advertising director for Garofalo, mentioned the corporate had no intention of opening factories within the US. “We’ve been in Gragnano [a town near Naples] since 1789 and are usually not shifting,” he advised Gambero Rosso.
Meloni’s authorities and the European Fee are lobbying Washington to backtrack. Italy’s agriculture minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, mentioned the focusing on of pasta was “hyper-protectionist”. “We see neither the necessity nor the justification,” he mentioned.
Ettore Prandini, the president of Coldiretti, Italy’s largest agribusiness affiliation, mentioned the tariffs can be a “deadly blow” for Italian pasta.
“It is rather dangerous and no person imagined {that a} state of affairs like this might come up, particularly after Europe had reached the settlement on 15%,” he mentioned.
Prandini mentioned the tariffs have been particularly brutal provided that the US is rife with merchandise that mimic the names of well-known Italian meals manufacturers.
“It is a actual problem in America,” he mentioned, including that the nation is the largest perpetrator relating to producing “Italian sounding” manufacturers. “The market in imitation Italian merchandise is price about €120bn globally, of which €40bn is produced within the US, “ he mentioned. “This impacts the complete Italian meals business.”
