Big tariffs threatenThe US will soon be without Italian pasta?
Many Americans may soon abandon their favorite pasta. Due to the extreme tariffs announced, Italian manufacturers are preparing to withdraw from the US market.
Italy’s most popular pasta variety may soon disappear from supermarkets and grocery stores in the US. The reason: Tariffs that will double those prices will go into effect in January. The background is the decision of the US Department of Commerce to impose additional anti-dumping duties of almost 92 percent.
Therefore, two large Italian producers – La Molisana and Pasta Garofalo – are said to have sold pasta at extremely low prices between July 2023 and June 2024. Both companies deny any wrongdoing.
The new duties will be in addition to existing US tariffs of 15 percent on most imports from the EU. This means tariffs of around 108 percent will be imposed on pasta, including pasta from other producers imported from Italy. Di Cecco, Barilla and Rummo brands are among those affected.
The combined tariffs are among the highest imposed by US President Donald Trump’s administration. According to the Wall Street Journal, this would make doing business in the US too expensive for Italian pasta exporters. They are therefore preparing to withdraw from US operations in early January. Some pasta makers suspect the tariffs are more than just the price of spaghetti. “This is not about dumping – this is an excuse to block imports,” Cosimo Rummo, head of Rummo Pasta, told the newspaper.
“This is a very important market for us,” said Giuseppe Ferro, managing director of family-run La Molisana pasta factory. But no country has enough margin to absorb such high tariffs. “It would be a shame if the market was taken from us for no apparent reason,” Ferro said.
Markets matter
Italy is currently trying to at least reduce the threat of additional tariffs. The government in Rome is working with the European Commission to persuade the US to carry out a reassessment, Italy’s Foreign Ministry said in October.
The United States is one of the most important markets for Italian pasta, with exports worth nearly $800 million. Overall, according to data from the national statistics agency Istat, Italian pasta exports will be worth more than four billion euros by 2024.
According to the Wall Street Journal, anti-dumping investigations into Italian pasta producers are nothing new. In the 1990s, the Commerce Department discovered that many importers were flooding the US with pasta at prices below normal market prices. Since then, American pasta manufacturers have routinely filed anti-dumping complaints.
Inspections carried out by the Ministry of Trade often found one or more Italian companies at fault. However, the punishment is usually light. Italian manufacturers accept this and view it as part of the cost of doing business in the US. They are confident that their products from the country of pasta will still be popular with consumers even though prices are higher due to tariffs. But now they are faced with tariffs so high that their business in the US is at risk.
