Government and business sources give different estimates of what the impact of the 15% U.S. tariffs on EU imports will be in Europe. The 15% tariff does not apply to aluminum and steel, which are still burdened with a 50% tariff. What this implies for products containing aluminum and steel (machines, for instance) is not clear yet. According to the Milan-based ISPI think-tank: “U.S. tariffs penalize European countries with significant trade exposure to the United States, such as Germany and Italy. German GDP could contract by 0.3%, Italian GDP by 0.2%, while the impact on France would be more limited, at around 0.1%.
17% of German exports to the U.S.A. are cars, 14% are machines, 9% are chemical products. Machines alone amount to $27 billion.
According to Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, the 15% tariffs on U.S. imports from the EU can have an up to 0.5% impact on Italian GDP. However, business leaders indicate a bigger impact. According to Raffaele Orsini, chairman of the Italian Association of Industry (Confindustria), the depreciation of the dollar versus the euro must be added to the 15% tariffs, for a total loss of 15% (€22.6 billion) of Italian exports to the U.S.A.
