Exports are holding up but the uncertainty about duties cannot last
Giansanti and Ponti against 10% duties: the EU must defend its interests and aim to“zero duties“.Article by Marco Fortis exclusively for EDI
In the first quarter of 2025, Italy confirmed its fourth position in world exports excluding motor vehicles. Exports to Germany are recovering. But the unknown duties weigh on relationships with customers and on the definition of prices with commercial chains.
The tariff war unleashed by US President Donald Trump is raging, for now more with threats and words than with deeds. But uncertainty reigns supreme among economic operators around the world who live these days as if suspended in limbo, unable to maintain normal relationships with suppliers, customers and commercial chains. The world trade data for the first months of 2025 present anomalous trends also due to product hoarding phenomena which have affected the American market precisely in fear of future tariff increases. Made in Italy is defending itself well, taking into account the chaos raging on international markets. Exports to Germany appear to be recovering, after two years of decline. This could offset, at least on a macroeconomic level, any losses on the American market. The Chinese market disappoints. On the other hand, exports to OPEC and Mercosur countries, Oceania and the ASEAN area are growing. Exports to the USA are increasing sharply, also due to extraordinary sales of medicines.
Italy fourth in world exports excluding vehicles
In the first quarter of 2025, Italy occupied fifth place in world exports, with 169 billion dollars. In fact, excluding the Netherlands and Hong Kong (as they are mainly transit and re-export nations, with inflated values), Italy was preceded only by the giants China (844 billion dollars), the United States (523 billion) and Germany (417 billion), while it was slightly overtaken by Japan (177 billion). Behind our country were South Korea (159 billion), the United Kingdom (154 billion) and France (153 billion).
Excluding vehicles, which account for only 8% of international trade, in the remaining 92% of world exports, Italy firmly confirmed itself in fourth place among the main exporting countries, with 157 billion dollars, ahead of Switzerland (driven to an anomalous extent by an exceptional export of gold and pharmaceutical products following hoarding in the pre-US tariff phase), France, the United Kingdom and Japan itself (which, excluding cars, it has a much less differentiated and important export than the Italian one). An exceptional fourth place for Italy, consolidated especially in the post-pandemic years, considering that only ten years ago, in the first quarter of 2015, Italy was seventh in exports excluding vehicles, also preceded by France, South Korea and Japan. Therefore, in just a decade our country has gained three places in this particular ranking.
Exports to Germany are recovering
In the first four months of 2025, according to Istat data, for the first time in a long time Italian exports to EU countries grew significantly (+2.8% compared to the same period last year) and performed better than those to non-EU countries (+2.1%). The latter, based on the first preliminary estimates, then suffered a sharp setback in May (-5.2% compared to May 2024), with the result that in the first five months of 2025 it stood at a modest +0.5%.
On the other hand, exports to EU countries in the first four months showed a good recovery in Italy's exports to Germany (+4.1%, approximately 1 billion euros more than in January-April 2024). The recovery of Germany was associated with that of Northern Europe which also drove Italian exports towards Czechia (+8.5%, equal to +231 million), Poland (+2.3% equal to +153 million), the Netherlands (+3.5% equal to +222 million) and France itself (+1.8%, equal to +376 million). The increase in Italian exports to these five EU countries was approximately 2 billion in the first four months of this year alone. This in itself can constitute an important bulwark against possible American tariffs. At least in aggregate terms because the impact of possible US tariffs on individual companies and on individual products and sectors is clearly different and there are those, among the various Made in Italy exporters, who could suffer significantly. In any case, in macroeconomic terms, based on recent estimates by Svimez, Italian exports to the USA would be reduced by 4.3% in the case of horizontal duties at 10%, with a contraction in value of 2.9 billion in exports on an annual basis. This means that the recovery of Italian exports to the aforementioned 5 EU countries, already in the order of 2 billion in just four months, alone would be enough to more than counterbalance the impact of such a negative scenario.
Italian exports to China in free fall, increasing in the USA (also due to hoarding of drugs), OPEC and Mercosur countries are pulling
In the first five months of 2025, meanwhile, the decline in Italian exports to China continued (-13.2%, equal to -868 million euros), also due to the changes in consumption models underway in that country, as well as the disappearance of the extraordinary flows of medicines from Italy to Beijing during the Covid years. On the other hand, also thanks to the push of exceptional sales of pharmaceutical products, Italian exports to the United States increased considerably in the period January-May 2025 (+7.2%, equal to approximately +2 billion). Exports to OPEC countries also increased sharply (+11.3%, equal to +1 billion) and the Mercosur countries +7.4%, equal to +222 million).
The disappointment of the BRICs and above all of China
What happened to theBRICfor our exporters? With this acronym, in the now distant 2001, the Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill nicknamed the set of the four economiesBrazil, Russia, India and China, considered future protagonists of globalization. The term BRIC had enormous success on a global level, while in Italy it also offered the right to the usual dominant negative thought to add further avalanches of criticism towards our exporting companies, judged too small and not very innovative to seize the opportunities offered by the development of the BRICs themselves. Reality and globalization have gone very differently.Italian companies have been able to grow on the markets, contradicting the mainstream, as demonstrated by the fourth place in world exports excluding the vehicles mentioned above.
But our country has directed its exports not so much to the BRICs but above all elsewhere. China, in particular, has never become the El Dorado predicted by dominant thought, except for some limited types of goods (for example luxury or textile or packaging machinery). TheAsian giant has always been, however,one of our bitter competitors, which furthermore continues to make extensive use of counterfeiting Made in Italy products and brands. TheRussia, after the Russian-Ukrainian war, it is practicallyexit.Brazil and India never really took off as markets. The set ofBRIC, today, is all in all onemarginal component of our exports. One number above all: in 2024 Italian manufacturing exports to the BRIC countries amounted to29.5 billion euros, the one towards Spain alone instead of33.1 billion.
Considering manufacturing exports, the "China disappointment" is today contrasted with at least six market blocks of non-EU countries to which Italy exports more than to China (four blocks) or approximately the same as to it or slightly less (two blocks). These six market blocks, which we will call the "other Chinas", represented for Italy in 2024 well98 billion in exports, that is, almost three and a half times our exports to the BRIC countries. And they also constitute a nice alternative to the possible negative repercussions of US duties.
IfItalian exports of manufactured goods to China amounted to 14.7 billion euros in 2024, the first market block is made up of Türkiye and India, with 22 billion. Even excluding the 5.2 billion worth of gold and jewelery sent to Turkey, which constitutes a somewhat particular item, Italian exports to Türkiye-India would still exceed those to Beijing. The second market block is represented by Japan-South Korea-Taiwan, the three large advanced countries of the Far East, with 16.6 billion euros. The third is made up of the United Arab Emirates-Saudi Arabia-Qatar, with 16.3 billion. The fourth is given by the ASEAN countries plus Australia, with 15.9 billion.These four blocks of countries, therefore, are each individually larger than China as our target market. The Central-South American block (excluding Mexico), with our exports amounting to 14.2 billion, is slightly less important than the Chinese market. While the Canada-Mexico market bloc, with 12.7 billion euros, is not too far from China and could reach it shortly.
In short, Italian companies have proven to be much more "intelligent" than the experts who criticized them for their (alleged) inability to expand into new markets. And, wherever there was true and fair competition,Made in Italy has been able to successfully push itself to conquer a world in which globalization may not have ended but has certainly radically changed its face.
US duties at 10%? The possible risks, the fears of the agri-food sector. But prolonged uncertainty is even worse
The hypothesis of a possible application of 10% duties on European exports to the USA holds ground and many, including the Italian government, have judged it to be a possible lesser evil. Some Made in Italy sectors, however, are very worried, including agri-food. The President of Confagricoltura and COPA is particularly critical of the 10% tariff hypothesis,Massimiliano Giansanti, who gave an interview on this matter to “Il Sole-24 Ore”. For Giansanti, “the EU is strong and has all the tools to assert its rights. Between the USA and the EU, it is not Europe that has to pay a 10% duty: we, for example, make great use of American technology and we must not always accept that we are the only ones who end up with the duties. The European Union is a great economic and political power. I believe that the strength of the EU has not yet been fully explored”.
AlsoGiacomo Ponti, President of Ponti S.p.a., Federvini and Italia del Gusto in an interview with "La Stampa" expressed himself on this matter. For Ponti, “even if the tariffs were reduced to 10%, the effect would remain significant, penalizing Italian businesses, American consumers and the very economy of those who impose those duties. For this reason, my hope is that the ongoing negotiations focus on the "zero tariffs" objective.. And he added:"Replace the American market? It is unrealistic to think of doing so in the short term. China, India, Japan and the Middle East offer great opportunities, but time, trust and dedicated investments are needed". Furthermore, for Ponti “you must pay attention toItalian sounding: if the prices of original products rose too much, there would be a risk of encouraging imitations, undermining the demand and competitiveness of true national production. Italian businesses today need stability and a clear vision, not further uncertainties”.
But above all, prolonged uncertainty is what penalizes operators the most at the moment. This climate of exasperated waiting, with the sword of Damocles of duties weighing on the heads of those who have to export, set prices for sales campaigns, and liaise with distribution chains, is extremely poisonous. With a joke one could say that uncertainty itself is worse than tariffs. Especially if it never ends.