Of all the gifts Italy has given us: Christopher Columbus, opera, ballet, Michelangelo's great works -- perhaps nothing has captured the American imagination as much as pasta. And now it's under threat.
Italian pasta makers warn that their products may disappear from U.S. stores if the Commerce Department raises tariffs, as it has threatened. Specifically, the Commerce Department proposed duties of 91.74% on Italian pasta exporters, in addition to existing 15% tariff on EU goods, starting in January.
Mama Mia! In response, several companies say they're preparing to pull their products from U.S. shelves if duties are finalized.
Reaction was swift on social media, where MSNBC host Chris Hayes wrote, "I’m now a one issue voter."
Sopranos references were rife, but perhaps none as apropos as the one used many times on TikTok, quoting son AJ to Tony Soprano: “What, no freakin’ ziti now?”
The Italian government has criticized the U.S. decision, and says it is working with EU to contest proposed duties. If a compromise can't be reached, makers say imported high-end pasta could disappear from our shelves in January. Note, though, that much of the Italian wares sold in bulk at U.S. grocery stores is made domestically. Others, like Barilla, are made in both Italy and the U.S.
Still, though, Scott Laing, a clinical assistant professor of finance at the University at Buffalo School of Management, warned The Guardian that U.S. producers could use tariffs as an excuse to raise their prices, too. “News stories are going around about the tariffs that are already starting to train consumers to think, ‘Oh, pasta prices are going up,’ without realizing that the majority of their pasta isn’t actually an Italian import,” Laing said. “So the stores can raise their prices just a little bit, making this off-brand pasta box $1 more, even though there is no tariff on it.”
Trump has also taxed Brazil, which is why coffee prices are up more than 20% in a year, and his team is already saying that will change this week. And although we can assume the man who nicknamed rival Ron DeSantis 'Meatball Ron,' embraces spaghetti, there's no word on whether the threat to Italian food will rattle his latest tariff plan.
"You don't have enough domestic manufacturing to fill up those shelves," Phil Lempert, food industry analyst and editor of SupermarketGuru, told CBS News. "So you're going to walk into the pasta aisle and you're going to see it half empty."