Proposed 107% Tariff on Italian Pasta Threatens to Wipe Out U.S. Exports

In late 2025, the U.S. Commerce Department moved toward imposing tariffs as high as 107% on pasta from more than a dozen Italian producers, including major brands like Barilla and Rummo. The rate combined broad tariffs already applied to European Union goods with an additional roughly 92% anti-dumping penalty. Coldiretti, one of Italy's largest agricultural groups, warned the tariffs would "virtually wipe out" pasta exports to the United States.

The policy threatened to more than double retail prices for popular pasta brands if companies passed the costs to consumers, drawing criticism from U.S. retailers who called pasta a basic grocery staple that should be shielded from trade disputes. Supporters of the tariffs framed them as enforcement of anti-dumping law rather than a punitive trade measure.

By early 2026, the Commerce Department signaled it would significantly reduce the rate, to a range of roughly 24% to 29%, after industry and diplomatic pushback, though the episode illustrated how the administration's tariff regime could reach into ordinary consumer goods with outsized effects.