One of the 13 Italian pasta companies facing hefty 107% tariffs come January is pleading with the Trump administration to reconsider its plans—a move that could force the business to double its prices overnight.
An executive with the American branch of Italian pasta giant Rummo told The Post that the company 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.”
Donnelly added, “I think if anybody in their right mind would examine it and see, they would say you can’t charge Rummo this. I think it’s a big mistake.”
Beginning in January, the Commerce Department has vowed to impose a punishing 92% antidumping tax on 13 major Italian pasta exporters—on top of an existing 15% tariff on European Union goods. Italian pasta brands have warned these duties could force them to pull their products from American grocery store shelves altogether.
The punitive tariff comes after the Department of Commerce requested information from two leading brands, Pasta Garofalo and La Molisana, as part of an investigation into “antidumping” allegations. Italian pasta exporters are frequently accused of “dumping,” or flooding the US market with low-priced pasta to gain an advantage over domestic producers.
Federal officials accused the 13 foreign businesses of being “uncooperative,” allegedly submitting documents containing untranslated Italian words. As a result, the steep tariff was applied to all companies in the cohort, which usually 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 added that the companies still have several months to participate in the review and potentially alter 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,” Desai 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,” he said, mentioning that Rummo USA employs Americans at its New Jersey warehouse. “I started getting a bunch of phone calls and saw the judgement online.”
The new tariffs would hit about half of Italy’s $780 million in pasta exports to the US—including more than 90% of its premium 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 around 15%, 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 are typically intended to penalize companies that sell products in the US at much lower prices than they do in their home country—effectively selling 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 said. “It’s the complete opposite, we should be commended.”
There are also widespread concerns that the new tariffs could hurt American farmers, as the US is a major exporter of durum wheat—a key ingredient in premium pasta. In 2021 alone, about 155,124 tons, or 36% of total US durum wheat exports, went to Italy, according to World Integrated Trade Solution. That’s worth roughly $50 million.
Most Italian pasta makers use durum wheat grown in Italy for their products, Donnelly noted, and the vast majority of Rummo’s durum wheat comes from Italian sources. However, the company does buy a small amount from Arizona and Australia.
The proposed tariffs not only threaten Italian pasta businesses and American consumers—they also risk disrupting vital trade relationships that benefit US farmers and global food supply chains.
https://nypost.com/2025/11/11/business/italian-pasta-giant-rummo-pleads-with-us-to-reverse-absurd-107-tariffs-to-avoid-hiking-prices/
