In addition to the Italian automotive industry, the exports of prosecco and parmesan cheese could be hit the hardest by the introduction of US tariffs

Exports of products between Europe, and in particular between Italy and the United States, are also on the agenda during US Vice President J.D. Vance’s visit to Rome from April 18 to 20, which was announced on Tuesday evening before the planned announcement of the tariffs.

Luca Zaia, governor of the agricultural powerhouse Veneto region and a politician in the right-wing ruling League party, said negotiations could bring a solution.

“European threats are not going anywhere. In the last five years, after the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, a tariff war could be the third blow to us,”

Zaia said.

Massimiliano Giansanti, president of the Confagricoltura agricultural association, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that the United States is Italy’s second-largest market. The value of Italian agri-food products exported to the United States last year was close to 8 billion euros.

Of this, 2 billion were wines, but the introduction of tariffs could also hit exports of olive oil, pasta and cheese. Giansanti believed that excellent, quality and better-known products would try to adapt for a while, but the planned tariffs would harm everyone equally.