Producers of Italy’s famed Parmigiano Reggiano said on Thursday that punishing US tariffs imposed on their product made “no sense”, noting that it wasn’t in competition with American hard cheeses.
Nicola Bertinelli, head of Italy’s Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium, said US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 20-percent tariff on all EU imports meant US duties on their products would rise from 15 to 35 percent.
“Imposing duties on a product like ours only increases the price for American consumers, without truly protecting local producers. It is a choice that harms everyone,” he said in a statement.
The United States is the consortium’s primary market outside of Italy, representing 22.5 percent of total exports.
But Parmigiano Reggiano makes up only about seven percent of the US market for hard cheeses, Bertinelli said.
Bertinelli added that a price increase may not necessarily hit sales as Parmigiano Reggiano is a premium product sold at more than double the price of local hard cheeses and shoppers are already willing to pay more for it.
However, he noted that it “makes no sense to apply duties to a product like ours that is not in real competition with American parmesan”.
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Local hard cheeses “are different products that have different positioning, production standards, quality and costs,” he said.
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“It is absurd to hit a niche product like Parmigiano Reggiano to protect the American economy.”
In 2019, during Trump’s first term, additional 25-percent tariffs temporarily pushed up the price of Parmigiano Reggiano in the US, but the duties were suspended in 2021 and “did not create problems for us in terms of sales,” Bertinelli added.