These sensitive export sectors were not covered under the trade deal struck in July by Trump and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.
The deal, detailed in a joint statement the following month, exempted some items, such as aircraft and generic drugs, but imposed a 15 percent tariff on most other European exports, while the EU committed to scrap its tariffs on U.S. industrial goods entirely.
The EU’s pitch for tariff relief comes just as Trump is pivoting away from the across-the-board tariffs he imposed on U.S. trading partners earlier this year, following a string of off-year election defeats for Republican candidates in which the rising cost of living swayed voters.
A week ago, he struck down “reciprocal tariffs” on more than 200 goods worldwide, including products used in fertilizer, tropical fruits like bananas and pineapples, coffee and several spices like cocoa, cinnamon and coriander.
In his latest move, Trump on Thursday eliminated tariffs on a large swath of Brazilian agricultural goods, including beef and coffee, dropping the additional, punitive tariffs he imposed this summer as he feuded with Brazil’s government and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The EU’s ask to lift tariffs on pasta is particularly sensitive in Italy, where the industry is reeling from the Trump administration’s threat to impose 92 percent tariffs from January in an anti-dumping case, on top of the 15 percent already in force — a level so high as to prohibit exports to the United States.
This story has been updated.
