Tariffs are a type of tax paid by a consumer who imports a product. <\/p>\n
Since returning to the White House last year, US President Donald Trump has unleashed a wide-ranging programme of these taxes, though some have since been softened. <\/p>\n
The president has sought to address trade practices that he sees as harmful to the US and boost American manufacturing. <\/p>\n
But economists have consistently warned that such moves can ultimately drive up costs for consumers, worsening cost-of-living issues.<\/p>\n
In the case of pasta, the US alleged that Italian-made goods were being sold at “less than normal value” in the US, which undercut local producers. This pricing policy is sometimes known as dumping.<\/p>\n
The commerce department was planning to charge a tariff rate of 91.74% for American imports of pasta made by the 13 Italian producers. <\/p>\n
Given that there is now an underlying 15% tariff on most products bought into the US from the European Union, the plan would have resulted in the rate of tax on pasta exceeding 100% of its value. <\/p>\n
It sparked fears of consumers experiencing major price increases, although the produce made by the 13 companies represents only a small share of total Italian pasta imported into the US.<\/p>\n
The plan would have also represented a political headache for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who enjoys a relatively close relationship with Trump among European leaders.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the Italian foreign ministry announced that the US had wound back its plan, saying this represented “an acknowledgement by the US authorities of the constructive co-operation shown by Italian companies”.<\/p>\n
In the case of one brand, La Molisana, the tariff rate had been dropped as low as 2.26%, the Italian statement added. Others will face slightly higher rates, up to 13.98%.<\/p>\n
In a statement of their own, which was given to the BBC’s US partner CBS News, a US commerce department spokesperson said: “[Our] post-preliminary analysis indicates that Italian pasta makers have addressed many of Commerce’s concerns raised in the preliminary determination. <\/p>\n
“Commerce will continue to engage with interested parties to take into account all information before issuing the final determination.”<\/p>\n
Other Trump tariffs that have recently been softened include a planned increase in the tax charged on imports of furniture items – which was postponed for 12 months shortly before it was due to take effect on New Year’s Day.<\/p>\n
And in November, the president signed an order that allowed certain key food products – including coffee, bananas and beef – to escape his tariffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tariffs are a type of tax paid by a consumer who imports a product. Since returning to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-670497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115829472211410551","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}