One of the 13 Italian pasta companies facing whopping 107% tariffs come January is pleading with the Trump administration to axe its plans – which could force the business to double its prices.
An executive with the American branch of Italian pasta giant Rummo told The Post it could only last a month or two without hiking prices – from $3.99 to as high as $7.99 – especially since affected firms will be forced to pay retroactive tariffs covering the past two years.
“We’re going to try to absorb it,” Jim Donnelly, chief commercial officer for Rummo USA, said Tuesday. “We’re going to try to hang in there as long as we possibly can.”
“I think if anybody in their right mind would examine it and see, they would say you can’t charge Rummo this,” he added. “I think it’s a big mistake.”
The Commerce Department has vowed to impose a punishing 92% antidumping tax on 13 major Italian pasta exporters in January, on top of a 15% tariff on European Union goods.
Italian pasta brands have warned the duties could force them to pull their products from American grocery store shelves.
The punitive tax comes after the Department of Commerce requested information from two best-selling brands, Pasta Garofalo and La Molisana, as part of an investigation into “antidumping” allegations.
Italian pasta exporters are regularly accused of “dumping,” or flooding the US market with low-priced pasta to gain an advantage over local businesses.
The feds accused the 13 foreign businesses of being “uncooperative” – allegedly sending over documents with untranslated Italian words – and applied the steep tariff to all the companies in the cohort, which typically face much lower antidumping taxes.
“Here are the facts: these Italian pasta makers screwed up a simple data request for a routine review of an anti-dumping probe that has been ongoing since 1996,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told The Post in a statement.
He said the companies have several months to participate in the review and change the Commerce Department’s “preliminary” 92% rate.
“Simply complying with the Commerce Department’s routine probe would be an infinitely better use of these Italian pasta makers’ time than spreading fake news that only underscores their incompetence,” he said.
Rummo didn’t even get a chance to submit its own paperwork for the review, according to Donnelly.
“That’s the crazy thing. I actually found out from a [news] report online,” said the exec, who noted Rummo US employs Americans at its New Jersey warehouse.
“I started getting a bunch of phone calls … and saw the judgement online.”
The new levies would hit about half of Italy’s $780 million in pasta exports to the US, including more than 90% of its more expensive offerings, according to Luigi Scordamaglia, CEO of Italian food trade group Filiera Italia.
Donnelly believes the 92% tariff – much higher than typical antidumping duties of 15% or so – is a mistake.
“Honestly, we just feel that maybe it’s February or a little bit after that, that somebody will probably see this and say, ‘Okay, this was a mistake,’” he told The Post.
“Our goal is to sell the best pasta in the world, not hurt people’s pockets.”
Antidumping tariffs typically penalize companies that sell their products in the US at much lower prices than they do in Italy – effectively selling them below production costs.
But Donnelly claimed Rummo sells its American pasta for three times as much as its products in Italy.
“We shouldn’t be paying any antidumping,” he told The Post. “It’s the complete opposite, we should be commended.”
There are also some concerns the new levies could harm American farmers, since the US is a major exporter of durum wheat – a key ingredient in premium pasta products.
About 155,124 tons – or 36% of its total durum wheat exports – went to Italy alone in 2021, according to World Integrated Trade Solution. That’s worth roughly $50 million, the site stated.
Most Italian pasta makers use durum wheat grown in Italy for their products, Donnelly said.
The vast majority of Rummo’s durum wheat comes from Italy. It also buys a small amount from Arizona and Australia.
