JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Italian pasta could vanish from the grocery store shelves, or at least double in price starting in January. That is if the Commerce Department goes ahead with a decision to slap heavy duties on imports from over a dozen Italian pasta brands. NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports on the ongoing negotiations.
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: Since the 1800s, Italian pasta - fusilli, spaghetti, rigatoni - has been shipped across the Atlantic to be enjoyed by Americans.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Italian).
SHERLOCK: It's not just pasta, says one advert for the Italian La Molisana pasta brand.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Italian).
SHERLOCK: It's an all-Italian declaration of love. Under the Trump administration, though, this declaration is being well and truly spurned, and the fight for Italian pasta is now national news. Here's NBC's "TODAY."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TODAY")
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Americans could soon be saying arrivederci to their favorite Italian pastas. Imports from 13 Italian pasta brands, including favorites like Barilla and Rummo, are staring down a 107% tariff.
SHERLOCK: This whopping extra import cost is a combination of tariffs the White House placed on all goods coming from the European Union and a penalty of almost 92% imposed by the U.S. Department of Commerce on pasta brands accused of dumping practices. This is when a company sells goods abroad at a cheaper price than in its domestic market. American competitive pasta producers have long accused Italian pasta brands of doing this, triggering regular investigations by the Department of Commerce. But this time, the penalty is huge. And Italian pasta companies and economic experts don't understand why.
CHIARA DONEGANI: Our update analysis of Italian pasta trade shows no evidence of the pasta dumping behavior.
SHERLOCK: Chiara Donegani is a senior teaching fellow in economics at Aston University in the United Kingdom. She says Italian pasta trades on the idea of heritage and quality and so sells at much higher prices than American pasta.
DONEGANI: Pasta is an iconic product - the renowned, well-known element of the Mediterranean diet. This is not dumping. This is premium dining, we would say.
SHERLOCK: The U.S. Department of Commerce says it applied the penalty after two Italian pasta companies it contacted for review, Garofalo and La Molisana, didn't provide the full requested data and the response included things like untranslated Italian words. The Commerce Department then decided to hit nearly a dozen other Italian pasta companies with the same punitive measures. Why is it doing this? The Department of Commerce didn't respond to NPR's request for comment. Donegani thinks...
DONEGANI: Our interpretation is that the short answer is politics and not economics.
SHERLOCK: President Trump has been using tariffs as an economic weapon for many issues, from trying to bring manufacturing to the United States to applying political pressure on other countries. In Italy, the foreign ministry is now directly involved in the Italian pasta affair, and a special task force has been set up to handle it.
LORENZO BAZZANA: (Speaking Italian).
SHERLOCK: Lorenzo Bazzana from Coldiretti, Italy's trade association that protects Italian produce and food producers, explains negotiations are now underway. And the White House has said Italian pasta brands still have time to engage with a review before the duties are final. If the full duties were imposed, Bazzana says, it would be, of course, bad news for Italian pasta makers for whom the U.S. is the second-largest export market, but they could find markets elsewhere.
BAZZANA: (Speaking Italian).
SHERLOCK: Who really loses out is the American consumer. The cost of their Italian pasta would skyrocket, or possibly, Bazzana says, they simply wouldn't be able to find it in shops anymore.
Ruth Sherlock, NPR News, Rome.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANGELO PETISI'S "MALINCONICA LUNA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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