Italian pasta makers are boiling over after the Trump administration slapped tariffs so steep that they could wipe their products from American shelves altogether.
Italy’s largest pasta exporters say they’ll stop selling to the United States as soon as January, after a combined 107 percent in import and antidumping duties made doing business across the Atlantic financially untenable. The move, they warn, could trigger a U.S. pasta shortage just months into the new year.
“It’s an incredibly important market for us,” said Giuseppe Ferro, CEO of La Molisana, one of Italy’s biggest pasta producers. “But no one has those kinds of margins.”
The U.S. Commerce Department last month announced a 92 percent antidumping duty on Italian-made pasta from La Molisana and a dozen other companies.
That’s on top of the Trump administration’s existing 15 percent tariff on European Union imports—one of the harshest trade penalties imposed on any product under the president’s protectionist push.
The decision followed a lengthy Commerce Department probe into alleged price dumping—selling pasta below market value to edge out U.S. competitors. But the ruling has blindsided Italy’s most iconic food industry, sparking diplomatic blowback in Rome.
“It would be a real shame to have the market snatched from us for no real reason,” Ferro said. His company and others are now petitioning the Commerce Department to reconsider the duties before its final ruling.
Ferro, who bought La Molisana out of bankruptcy in 2011, rebuilt it into a $400 million powerhouse with the U.S. as a cornerstone of its export business. Losing that market, he says, would be devastating.
Washington’s pasta wars are nothing new—the U.S. has been investigating Italian importers since the 1990s for underpricing—but the penalties were typically minor, the cost of doing business in a market that craves “authentic” Italian brands. This time, industry insiders say, the hit is existential.
“This isn’t about dumping—it’s an excuse to block imports,” said Cosimo Rummo, CEO of Rummo Pasta, another company caught in the crossfire.
Officials in Rome agree. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has assembled a diplomatic task force to push back on the decision, while EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic blasted the 107 percent combined tariffs as “clearly unacceptable.”
U.S. officials deny politics played a role, insisting the rates are the result of a “technical review.” An official noted, as evidence, that the Trump administration has friendly relations with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Commerce Department and the White House for comment.
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