Reprieve follows months of diplomatic talks and lobbying from Italian pasta makers.
The US government on Thursday said that proposed tariffs on Italian pasta would be slashed, in a move welcomed by the industry as well as consumers in America.
The tariffs would have seen an additional “anti-dumping” duty of 91 per cent applied on top of the existing 15 per cent general tariff on European agri-food imports, bringing the tariffs on Italian pasta to a massive 107 per cent.
Under new plans, the US department of commerce (DoC) has reduced the tariffs to between 2 and 14 per cent, with a final decision to be announced formally in early March.
The threatened extra tariffs were motivated by “dumping” accusations after an investigation by the DoC found that two major Italian producers – La Molisana and Garofalo – were allegedly selling pasta at below market value between July 2023 and June 2024. The companies denied the accusations.
The tariff set to be imposed on La Molisana would be cut to 2.26 per cent while the tariff on Garofalo would be set at 13.98 per cent, the Italian foreign ministry said, while the remaining 11 pasta producers are set to face tariffs of 9.09 per cent.
Sigh of relief for Italian pasta makers
The proposed move by the Trump administration would have almost doubled the cost of many pasta brands for shoppers and risked Italian pasta exporters pulling their produce from US supermarkets.
Italy’s agriculture minister Francesco Lollobrigida in October claimed that the hefty tariffs would trigger a “hyper-protectionist mechanism against our pasta producers, for which we see neither the need nor any justification”.
The US is one of Italy’s top export markets for pasta, with almost €671 million in exports in 2024, according to agricultural group Coldiretti, which had claimed that the extra tariffs risked dealing a “fatal blow” to the Italian pasta sector.
Coldiretti on Thursday celebrated the drastic reduction in the proposed tariffs, paying tribute to efforts by Lollobrigida, who said: “The good news coming from the United States demonstrates how serious work, without unnecessary alarmism, bears fruit”.
