From tariffs, death blow of 2.3 billion for food and wine

Unacceptable, very serious, unjustified. The world of Italian agribusiness, the country's leading manufacture, does not mince its words in rejecting President Trump's request for 30% tariffs and asks the European institutions for a firm and decisive response. According to Coldiretti, the tycoon's announcement is tantamount to a death blow of over 2.3 billion euros on Italian food and beverages, which last year grossed 7.8 billion euros from exports to the United States and this year aimed to reach 9 billion. For Italy's agri-food industry, the USA is the second most important world market, behind Germany.

'A 30% tariffs,' says the president of Federalimentare, Paolo Mascarino, 'exceeds any threshold of tolerability for companies. The combined impact of tariffs and the devaluation of the dollar will not be sustainable for several sectors'. Rather than an iron fist, however, food companies prefer to ask the EU for public intervention: 'We are not thinking of subsidies,' says Mascarino, 'but of urgent and structural measures to strengthen our competitive capacity: streamlining the bureaucratic burden on companies, reducing energy prices, facilitating access to credit.

Federalimentare's fear is that too harsh a response from the European Commission will end up triggering further American retaliation. The farmers' associations, however, are of a different opinion: 'President Von der Leyen,' said Coldiretti president Ettore Prandini yesterday, 'must work for a real solution as she has not yet done. It is striking, in this very delicate moment, the total absence of courage and strategic vision on the part of Europe'. The president of Confagricoltura, Massimiliano Giansanti, also comes down hard: 'Tariffs at 30% go beyond all gloomy forecasts and are absolutely unacceptable. Our companies could not bear such a burden. As Europe, we must be united in the negotiation and find a solution that does not afflict the economy and that does not undermine production systems on the issue of non-tariff barriers'. Even harsher was the CEO of Grana Padano, Stefano Berni, which has its third world market in the USA: 'Trump's decision is tantamount to a true declaration of economic war. So from today Europe can no longer consider him a competitor, but an enemy'.

For Italian wine, which takes in 1.9 billion euros from the US, a quarter of all exports, tariffs at 30% would in fact be equivalent to "an embargo", as the president of the UIV, Lamberto Frescobaldi, defined it: "It is unthinkable," he added, "to be able to place these volumes of wine elsewhere in the short term. While for the president of Federvini, Giacomo Ponti, it is a "very serious and unjustified measure, which penalises not only European producers, but also American economic operators who are an integral part of the supply chain. For every dollar spent on quality European goods, such as wine, up to $4.50 is in fact activated in the American economy'.