No additional duties on Italy’s food products will be triggered in the USA. In fact, the Trump administration has decided to spare Italy. Following the initial hypothesis, tariff increases should have affected wine, oil and pasta as part of the six-monthly review of the measures adopted according to the WTO ruling on the Boeing – Airbus dispute.
The latest blacklist affects France and Germany most, while sparing, in addition to Italy, the United Kingdom and Greece. The latter has been removed from the list of countries affected by additional duties on cheese.
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Additional duties that were threatened would have affected Italian food and drinks for an export value of 3 billion euro. This is equal to two thirds of total Italy’s F&B exports to the USA at a time already made difficult by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on global trade. The United States is in fact the first non-EU market for Italian food and beverage products, for a value of 4.7 billion euros in 2019 – growing by +4.8% in the half of 2020.
Additional tariffs of 25%, which came into force on October 18, 2019, are still in force. They have already affected Italian specialties such as Parmigiano Reggiano PDO, Grana Padano PDO, Gorgonzola PDO, Asiago PDO, Fontina PDO, and Provolone Valpadana PDO but also salami, mortadella, crustaceans, citrus shellfish, juices and liqueurs.
PARMIGIANO REGGIANO PDO CONSORTIUM’S RELIEF
“We certainly can’t celebrate, as the additional tariffs that came into force last October are still in force – sys Nicola Bertinelli, president of the Parmigiano Reggiano PDO protection Consortium – but at least Italy has been spared from a further tightening of additional duties. In a difficult moment like this, it would have been another hard blow for us. In fact the US is the second export market (after France) for Parmigiano Reggiano PDO, and the first outside the EU. Export volumes there exceed 10 thousand tons per year. We will work together with our Government and the European Union to eliminate these barriers to free trade that have nothing to do with the Airbus issue.”
CHIANTI: GOOD NEWS FOR ITALIAN WINE
The Consortium for the protection of Chianti wine also welcomes the decision of the United States Trade Representative (Ustr) not to trigger additional duties to Italian products. “This is excellent news – says Giovanni Busi, president of the Consortium – since the US is the first export market for us. At a time like this, not having cost increases on the part of importers allows us to resume normal commercial activity. The first goal is to return to pre-Covid levels: we have every chance to start again when the USA totally reopens its market.”
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