Wine, US duties hypothesis, Unione Italiana Vini: “Italy would lose 330 million euros in 2025”

A topic keeping on “pins and needles” also the world of wine, already challenging other worries for some time, from consumption which change towards a “healthy” turn, is the hypothesis of the arrival of duties by the US by President Donald Trump about Eu production (for the moment, only promised and threatened, but not officially actualized). Duties which, as it is worth recalling, during the first mandate of the residency of the leader of the Republican party didn’t arrive for Italian wine (in contrast, for example, to French wine), as well as, the green light to this measure hasn’t been given yet. The worry, obviously, remains, in Italy, and in the remaining part of the Old Continent. Not casually, Europe, through the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen took position declaring that it is ready to react in the case the “bugbear” of duties becomes reality. In the last few days, Unione Italiana Vini (Uiv) has already launched a first alarm underlining how the real consumption of Italian wine in the US closed 2024 with a drop (-4.4% the volume of sales), and, therefore, the feared duties by Trump administration assume, in his way, an increasingly more worrying meaning.
Uiv which is now back to make itself be heard publishing an analysis of its Observatory, from which the prediction that “USA duties (if applied, ed) will determine for Italian wine in 2025 a loss in sales of 330 million euros, data decreasing to 250 million if the dollar should maintain its current strength levels. The projection of Unione Italiana Vini supposes duties at 20% for all still wines, and at 10% for sparkling wines, a lower tariff for these lasts determined by the pressures of USA industry, more reluctant to tolerate commercial limitations on the cutting-edge type”, emerges. Therefore, a loss estimated at 15%, compared to the result of the last year, as the Observatory detects, based on the French experience occurred from half 2020, and the first trimester 2021, when, in front of duties charged by 25%, the reply of markets on the commercialized volumes was directly proportional (-24%).
“Wine – said president Unione Italiana Vini (Uiv), Lamberto Frescobaldi – is one of the Italy sectors which is most exposed in case of duties to the first world market. The damage to businesses will be unavoidable because if they want to remain competitive, they will have to take on great part of the request of the extra-responsibility, seeing that the market is not capable of supporting it. But, the damage will be double because also end consumers will suffer from it due to inflation that will return to knock insistently”.
2024, as Uiv makes notice, “will close with a value of expeditions to USA of over 1.9 billion euros, 24% of Italian wine in the world. A more than double share if compared to American weight on the total of Italian goods directed abroad (11%). The decrease determined by extra-tariffs will make the value in only one year decrease under 1.7 billion euros, i.e. below the levels of 2021”.