Arrivederci, made-in-Italy pasta.
Thirteen Italian pasta brands could pull their products from US grocery stores — or potentially be forced to hike prices dramatically as soon as January, when punishing 107% tariffs are set to take effect.
The levies — the highest the White House has moved to impose on a specific product since the start of President Trump’s crackdown on imports — come from the US’ 15% baseline tariff on European Union goods plus a punishing 92% levy over accusations that Italian pasta makers have been undercutting US competitors.
The Commerce Department says the penne purveyors have been violating “antidumping” laws, exporting their products to the US market at a very low price to gain an advantage over local businesses.
One affected company decried the new policy to The Post, declaring it would not pass on costs from the new tariff to customers.
Thirteen Italian pasta brands could pull their products from American grocery store shelves or hike prices as soon as January. fotoworld – stock.adobe.com
“This will be devastating to all the Italian pasta companies, not just Rummo,” said Jim Donnelly, chief commercial officer for Rummo USA.
He denied claims of antidumping, arguing that Rummo sells its products far above the Italian price in the US.
If it passed along the full costs of the tariffs in January, it would have to hike prices from $3.99 to as high as $7.99, Donnelly said.
“We will not pull the products from the shelf. We will absorb this until this bad ‘cookie cutter judgment’ is fixed,” he told The Post.
“We are confident that the government will see this is a big mistake. We are being penalized because of two other pasta companies’ failure to supply timely and accurate info.”
Last year, the Department of Agriculture launched an investigation after two US pasta manufacturers called for a review of Italian exporters.
As part of the probe, the US government requested information from two brands, Pasta Garofalo and La Molisana, which denied the allegations.
The feds accused the businesses of being “uncooperative” — allegedly sending over documents with untranslated Italian words and undefined acronyms — and applied the steep tariff to all 13 companies, assuming the behavior of those two brands was reflective of the whole group.
The Italian firms argued that they responded the same way they did in past reviews, and that the only change came from a much stricter Commerce Department.
In a brief submitted to the department earlier this month, La Molisana claimed the government made a mistake in its calculations, treating the company’s net prices as gross prices.
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Along with Pasta Garofalo, La Molisana and Rummo, the impacted pasta brands include Agritalia, Aldino, Antiche Tradizioni Di Gragnano, Barilla, Gruppo Milo, Pastificio Artigiano Cav. Giuseppe Cocco, Pastificio Chiavenna, Pastificio Liguori, Pastificio Sgambaro and Pastificio Tamma.
Barilla makes pasta for the US market within the States and is less likely to be impacted by the tariffs than the other businesses, Italian media noted. The Post has sought comment from Barilla.
The companies are asking the Commerce Department to revise its assessment and reduce the antidumping tax before it takes effect in January.
President Trump’s Commerce Department imposed a 92% antidumping tax on the Italian exporters. AP
Italian pasta brands have been the subject of numerous antidumping probes since the mid-1990s, when the Commerce Department said it discovered importers had been flooding the US with low-priced products.
US companies regularly file complaints about their Italian counterparts, asking the feds to look into allegations of dumping.
The Commerce Department has sometimes taken action against Italian pasta brands, though the punishment is usually much smaller than the new levy.
Some officials in Rome say the move is politically motivated, with Italy’s Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida recently calling the policy “hyper-protectionist,” according to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
“We see neither the necessity nor any justification” for the tariffs, he was quoted as saying.
For its part, Corriere ran with the headline: “Trump declares war on Italian pasta.”
The Commerce Department says the penne purveyors have been violating “antidumping” laws. aguadeluna – stock.adobe.com
A White House official told The Post the Italian companies had multiple opportunities to provide the requested information before they were hit with the high tariff rate.
The official denied claims that the antidumping review was politicized, adding that the companies should focus on complying with the investigation “instead of complaining to Fake News reporters.”
The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
The White House denied claims that its antidumping review was politicized. Getty Images
Over the summer, Trump struck what he called “the biggest deal ever” with the European Union.
The 27-country bloc agreed to buy $750 billion of energy products from the US and invest another $600 billion in the US. Trump kept the baseline tariff on EU goods to 15%, with an extra levy on European steel and aluminum.
Last month, Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s top trade official, said the 107% tariffs on pasta are “clearly something that is not acceptable.” He said he discussed the issue with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has launched a special task force to fight the antidumping levy.
Dining and Cooking