Italy's Meloni warns of Western 'trade war' risk after Trump's latest tariff threat

Local Italy

14-07-2025

"A trade war within the West would weaken us all in the face of the global challenges we are confronting together," Meloni said in a statement.
"Europe has the economic and financial strength to assert its position and reach a fair and sensible agreement," she added, noting that 'Italy will do its part, as always'.
Trump threw weeks of EU-US negotiations into disarray on Saturday after he said he would hit the 27-nation bloc with punishing 30 percent levies if no trade agreement is reached by August 1st.
In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, he said the relationship between the EU and the US 'has been, unfortunately, far from reciprocal' in recent years.
"Starting on August 1, 2025, we will charge The European Union a Tariff of only 30% on EU products sent into the United States," Trump wrote.
"Please understand that the 30% number is far less than what is needed to eliminate the Trade Deficit disparity," he added.
Von der Leyen condemned Trump's move on Saturday, saying that "30 percent tariffs on EU exports would disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains, to the detriment of businesses, consumers and patients on both sides of the Atlantic".
Despite the latest tariff threat, Brussels was "ready to continue working towards an agreement by August 1," von der Leyen added.
A first round of EU "countermeasures" retaliating for US levies on steel and aluminium goods was originally scheduled to come into force on Monday, July 14th.
But Brussels delayed the retaliatory tariffs until August 1st to allow for further trade talks with the US.
"This is the time for negotiations," von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels on Sunday.
The bloc is Washington's biggest trading partner, with the value of EU-US trade in goods and services standing at €1.7 trillion in 2024, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat.
The EU as a whole has an annual trade surplus with the US of around $235.6 billion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), which reports to the US Department of Commerce.
Only China has a higher yearly surplus.
Experts have warned that Italy – the world's fourth-largest exporter – would be hit particularly hard by US levies, as around 10 percent of its exports go to the US.
Italy's main agricultural lobby group Coldiretti said on Saturday that tariffs of 30 percent on EU goods would deal a "deadly blow" to Italian agri-food businesses, causing losses of up to €2.3 billion.
Maurizio Gardini, head of business lobby Confcooperative, said that Italy's exports and manufacturing sectors would suffer a "technical knockout" if the threatened levies were to come into force.
With reporting from AFP.