On Monday night, Kelly planned to make dinner and spend the night inside with her family. Instead, she told her husband to put the kids to bed so she could get in the car, drive to Wegmans and \u201cpanic buy\u201d $100 worth of Rummo pasta.<\/p>\n
Kelly, a 42-year-old product manager who lives outside Philadelphia<\/a>, has celiac disease, which means that eating gluten triggers an immune response that leads to digestive issues. She saw fellow gluten-free people on Reddit and TikTok freaking out over the fact that the US is mulling a 107% tariff on Italian pasta imports. According to the Wall Street Journal, the hike could lead to those companies withdrawing from the US market as early as January.<\/p>\n That means American shoppers might not see their favorite brands in the Italian aisle come January \u2013 including Rummo, which Kelly and other celiacs claim makes the \u201cbest\u201d gluten-free spaghetti, out of a corn and brown rice mixture. (Kelly did not want her last name used for fear of retaliation from Donald Trump<\/a> supporters. Representatives for Rummo did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea of not having any pasta that I can safely eat and won\u2019t cost an arm and a leg was a little terrifying,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n Despite the Trump administration\u2019s many tariffs<\/a>, this news hit harder for Americans who love Italian food. Cue fears of a pasta shortage. \u201cI\u2019m now a one issue voter,\u201d the MSNBC host Chris Hayes wrote<\/a> on X. \u201cThis is the attack on italians in the USA that conservatives *think* \u2018cancelling columbus day\u2019 is,\u201d wrote<\/a> a Reddit user. On TikTok, a user quoted<\/a> Tony Soprano\u2019s son, AJ: \u201cWhat, no freakin\u2019 ziti now?\u201d<\/p>\n Ninety-two per cent of the tax has been newly proposed<\/a> by the US Department of Commerce (DoC), which alleges that Italian producers have been selling their pasta at unfairly low prices; the other 15% comes from the existing Trump tariff on European Union imports. The Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> that Italy is responsible for $770m worth of annual pasta sales to the US.<\/p>\n However, the elimination of those sales would not necessarily make the food scarce stateside. \u201cMost of the pasta sold in the United States is already domestically produced,\u201d said Scott Laing, a clinical assistant professor of finance at the University at Buffalo School of Management.<\/p>\n Barilla\u2019s blue-and-red boxes are ubiquitous in US grocery stores, where it has a 34% market share. That\u2019s an Italian company with production factories in the US as well as Italy, so experts predict families will still be able to buy a $2 box of Barilla spaghetti come January. A representative for the company declined to comment to the Guardian, \u201csince the matter is still under evaluation by the DoC\u201d.<\/p>\n Those most likely to experience sticker shock are celiacs like Kelly, or pasta snobs who only buy premium imported items. \u201cMaybe a $5.99 box of gluten-free pasta is going to become $11 or $12,\u201d Laing said. \u201cI don\u2019t think most consumers are going to notice it.\u201d<\/p>\n That is, as long as US producers do not use the tariffs as an excuse to raise their prices, too. \u201cNews stories are going around about the tariffs that are already starting to train consumers to think, \u2018Oh, pasta prices are going up,\u2019 without realizing that the majority of their pasta isn\u2019t actually an Italian import,\u201d Laing said. \u201cSo the stores can raise their prices just a little bit, making this off-brand pasta box $1 more, even though there is no tariff on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Scott Ketchum, who founded the US-produced, artisanal pasta brand Sfoglini, agreed that US manufacturers will \u201ctake advantage\u201d of the news and slightly raise their prices. \u201cThat\u2019s just business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sfoglini pasta prices are higher than most grocery store brands \u2013 a 12-ounce box goes for about $6 \u2013 due to its use of organic wheat pasta that\u2019s imported from Italy. Ketchum says he\u2019s already paying tariffs on that ingredient. \u201cYou never really know what Trump\u2019s going to do until it\u2019s done,\u201d Ketchum said. \u201cThe tariffs on wheat were 10%, but then after negotiating, he actually increased them another 5%.\u201d<\/p>\n As an Italian-American, Katie Gia eats a lot of pasta. \u201cIt\u2019s a quick thing where I can reheat it, and that\u2019s convenient,\u201d she said. Gia, who is 29 and lives in Florida, has a gluten allergy. But she cannot afford to stock up on pasta like Kelly did. \u201cGluten-free pasta generally is also limited stock,\u201d Gia said. \u201cI\u2019ll buy a couple bags of the brands I like, but I also know there\u2019s a lot of other people who are going to want to do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The pasta tariff comes as grocery prices are rising<\/a> for families across the country. The Yale Budget lab estimated in September that tariffs would cost households an extra $2,400 a year. Snap benefits have been delayed due to the government shutdown, leaving those who rely on food stamps hungry and anxious. Though Trump has angrily squashed concerns over the cost of living \u2013 telling reporters<\/a> \u201cinflation is way down\u201d earlier this month \u2013 grocery prices have increased under his administration.<\/p>\n Kelly said she left plenty of boxes of her favorite gluten-free pasta on the shelves at her local Wegmans: \u201cI did not completely clear it out.\u201d And she understands that there are worse things going on in the world than missing out on spaghetti.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel so petty saying, \u2018But my pasta!\u2019\u201d Kelly said. \u201cBut when you have celiac disease, so much of your brain power is constantly consumed by food. What can I eat? What is safe? It\u2019s a low-level anxiety that always hangs with you. The idea that a staple food you can eat might just go away is one more dig that we have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n