Protect theagri -food Italian from duties USA and come on counter EU. The Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti, during the Assembly of Confagricoltura Varese, expressed himself on the topic.
The minister requests that Europe defends not only the general interests of the Union, but also the specific Italian ones, considering the differences between the various agricultural systems.
Giorgetti on the duties at Italian agri -food
The USA are a crucial market, considered the 8 billion out of 70 of agri -food exports in 2024. A commercial war would risk putting a fundamental sector of Made in Italy on its knees, already affected by chronic critical issues (drought, floods, unfair competition, gap between demand and demand of work, etc.).
So Giorgetti expressed himself, on the sidelines of his participation in the Assembly of Confagricoltura Varese:
“Agriculture is the one that already discounts the duties in the reverse sense. This is one of the topics on which the Americans are insisting … it is clear that there are still weeks of discussion. We see the first agreements that the Americans have announced with India and we will see how Europe will manage to protect not only European interests but also Italian interests in Europe because unfortunately we have different economies and agricultures”.
Then a phrase that suggests the reconfirmation of measures to support the agricultural sector:
“We must go on trying to reward and protect those who continue to believe it and continue to invest and want to produce in Italy”.
EU counter -firm
Following the announcement of the US duties, first introduced and then temporarily suspended, the EU voted in favor of the application of a 25% rate on a list of products, including agri -food, imported from the United States of America. These are the same products finished in the US-EU iron arm wrestling in 2018, but with some specific exclusions.
The idea is to introduce additional counter -fans by December 1, 2025, in the absence of an agreement. Confagricoltura considered the move of the European Commission, for a total value of over 22 billion euros, a first step forward for the start of a negotiation. The node of the question is exactly this: US duties are not a single commercial measure, but also political: Donald Trump intends to press pressure on world governments so that they accept to treat more favorable conditions with the United States.
In April, the vice -president of Confagricoltura, Sandro Gambuzza, highlighted how to complicate the picture there are not only the duties applied to the EU agri -food, and therefore also to Italian products: i differentiated dutiesfor example as the lowest 10% rate on Australian wines, risks further penalizing our country.
But Confagricoltura worries there is also the proliferation of Italian sounding (foreign products that imitate Italian ones).
Confagricoltura’s request
Confagricoltura has long been highlighted to the government the need for a new European plan, which exploits the unused resources of the PNRR and other EU funds to support the competitiveness of Italian companies on the US market and prevent individual countries from having scattered in negotiations with the United States. Also in consideration of the fact that, adding all the pitfalls, the Italian agri -food is likely to lose up to 121 billion euros.
