From aerospace restarts Biden’s Pax Atlantica.
The oceanic distance between the old and new continents seems to have been bridged, at least for one quarter.
This is a four-month suspension of tariffs announced by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, after a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden.
Duties cost our country 500 million euros. The Italian agri-food products most affected cheeses, cured meats, juices, citrus fruits, shellfish, liqueurs – equal to 5 billion euros of exports per year -.
Today there is rejoicing in the dairy sector for the return of a fundamental market involving: more than 321 dairies, 2,600 farms and 50 thousand people. A system that generates a consumer turnover of 2.35 billion euros. These are important figures, so much so that for Parmigiano Reggiano alone, the USA is the leading export market, accounting for 20% of total, equal to about 12 thousand tons of product. Just on Parmigiano Reggiano, from October 2019 weighed additional tariffs equal to 25% (Trump increased tariffs from 2.15 to 6 dollars per kilo) with an increase in the shelf price from 40 to 45 dollars per kilo affecting sales.
Italy remains, however, the top foreign supplier to the U.S., with about 38 thousand tons in 2019, worth almost 350 million euros. And the U.S. is the first non-EU destination for Italian companies. In 2020, due to the combination of duties-pandemic, we have seen a real collapse of sales in the U.S.: -18% in volume and -21% in value, for an overall loss of about 50 million euros*
The Biden administration has chosen to repair the relationship damaged by Trump, but at the same time has also promised to reinforce “buy American”, a trade version of “America first”, a well-known workhorse of Trumpian policies.
A suspension that, however, puts a temporary end to duties that have affected sectors that have nothing to do with technology and countries that, like Italy, in the twenty-year affair have been only spectators. The duties imposed by the Trump administration on Italian products caused a collapse in exports in 2020 and the hardest hit among food products were Made in Italy cheeses, which recorded a 21% drop in exports.
The economic war was started by the United States over the Boeing-Airbus battle, the WTO, after the appeals, declared both parties winners and losers, authorizing the imposition of billion dollar duties: 7.5 billion dollars against the EU, 4 billion against the United States. The evolution of the matter could be, hopefully, a new extension motivated by the benefits found by the truce and therefore more time margin to start (it is the case to say) negotiations that can put a definitive end to the diatribe.
ITA0039, which has always been at the side of our Italian agricultural and food industry, expresses its satisfaction for the truce, but hopes for a definitive cessation of hostilities, for a clear and definitive overcoming of differences. This is a time marked by the need for a profound revision of the perspectives of each state, in view of a full and convinced cooperation, also and above all to protect the welfare and health of consumers, which begins especially at the table. Italian agri-food goods represent a world excellence of wholesomeness and taste and the ITA0039 Protocol takes the side of Italian productions, certifying the true Made in Italy all over the world..
* Coldiretti data
