Trump's tariffs: much noise (almost) for nothing
Comparison of economists: limited impact on exports for now but risks of long-term knock-on effects on investment in Europe
by Luca Orlando
"The world has changed," explains Luigi Federico Signorini, "and I fear that tariffs now represent the new normal. "A process that has been going on for a long time since the 'first' Trump," adds Alessandro Fontana, "which calls into question the possibility for companies to produce anywhere in the world."
Assessments, those of the economist and former director general of the Bank of Italia and director of the Confindustria study centre, that give a sense of the pervasiveness of the changes taking place in terms of trade, a theme to which one of the first events of the Trento Festival of Economics is dedicated: 'Trump's tariffs, much ado about nothing'.
While it is indeed true that in terms of exports, the direct effect on the volumes of Italian-made goods to the United States was apparently limited, breaking down the data in sectoral terms changes the matter.
'28% of trade with the US,' Fontana clarifies, 'is related to pharmaceuticals, which have grown a lot. Net of these, however, and some one-off ship sales, there was a reduction in sales in other important sectors. For example in metals, or in food, with an average slowdown in the order of 5%. Of course, nothing as much as one might have feared, but a reduction nonetheless, and this despite a first quarter of 2025 on course due to the preventive overstocking carried out by the companies'.
'In fact,' Signorini adds, 'if we take Liberation Day, that is, Trump's original announcement of tariffs towards the world, as a reference, today we see that the level reached is much lower. To this we must add Europe's wise decision not to go into a trade confrontation, avoiding retaliation. Depressive effects on growth certainly exist, but in reality the forecasts were already depressed even before 2 April 2025'.
