"We are all very concerned," said the Vice President for Export and Investment Attraction Barbara Cimmino in an interview with Repubblica on the eve of 2 April, the date when US President Donald Trump will announce a series of new trade tariffs assumed to be around 20%. "The impact is incalculable until we have the details, but the closer we get the more the sad feeling is that they will affect all products across the board".

In Italy, the sector fashion "is one of the most exposed along with pharmaceuticals, food, obviously at theautomotive. For our export would be a hard blow, the American market is irreplaceablebut it would also be so for the American trade chains that sell our products. This makes everything even more paradoxical,' Cimmino said, emphasising that he does not believe that duties are just a negotiating tool for the US president: 'If we listen to his words, the distorting narrative that Europe has screwed over the US, the obsession with rebalancing the trade deficit, you would not say that. But then I also think Trump has a taste for negotiation'.

Looking at theEurope, the Vice President of Confindustria is convinced that should come to the table "first with a single voice, breakaways by individual countries would be dangerous, with Trump friendship counts for little. We must on the one hand show strength and on the other hand be prepared to negotiate, even creatively. We are a market of 450 million consumers, we have levers to play'. And then that applying "proportional retaliation would be self-defeating, in history, trade escalations have always had devastating impacts on societies and created conflicts. I don't believe there is a one-size-fits-all solution: certain products can be responded to with reciprocal duties, others such as those with geographical indications must be defended at all costs, even involving American consumers, who know and appreciate them'.

On what might stop Trump from going ahead with this line is that 'without a doubt the duties will bring inflation, in a very indebted country, even if this will not happen immediately. Wall Street might react sooner and send a signal'.

About the government's strategy of promoting exports to new destinationsCimmino repeated that 'the US is irreplaceable. And then finding new markets takes time. But the sense of strengthening ourselves in mature or emerging countriesinitiative in which Confindustria is participating, is to reduce dependencies and strengthen the fabric of exporting companies. I am just back from Chile, soon to go to India and Japan. Promoting free trade agreements is an effective response to Trump and the uncertainty he creates. I am thinking for example of the one with Mercosur, 250 million consumers".

It is precisely on Mercosur that the government has not yet released its reservations, worried by the farmers' opposition: 'Some countries like Spain have been much more clear in saying that it should be signed. And we industrialists think so too'.