What will happen now that Donald Trump is President? We asked this question to economist Gianluca Bagnara (in the photo below), a consultant to many companies who often travels around the world to open new markets.
"The first element we need to consider is the appointment of Sonny Perdue, former governor of Georgia, as Secretary of Agriculture. I would like to stress that the US are great exporters of agricultural raw material, however the flow of goods may be compromised if Trump continues to remodel the trade relationships with China and other countries. These changes may even affect the prices of raw materials on an international level."
"In addition, with new immigration laws, entrepreneurs might have to deal with a lack of manpower. What is more, American farmers are asking for lower production costs, which could be achieved through milder environmental laws."
The alliance with Russia and approval for Brexit are clear, so a weaker role of the EU on the geopolitical scenario is to be expected. The Middle East question will no longer be tackled through NATO but by a USA-Russian axis, thus favouring the Russian energy dominance towards the Mediterranean with a smaller role for Germany.
Credit: AP/LM Otero
"At the same time, Trump is nullifying the great international treaties to favour bilateral agreements. This approach favours the countries with an institutional network that can work on multiple fronts at the same time, such as the American one."
"In Italy, I expect there will be a greater US pressure to export agricultural products with increasingly weaker health and environmental guarantees. It may also be more difficult to export our products. We need to focus on our relationship of trust with American consumers."
Italy could play a key role on the Mediterranean scenario, "but it needs to be ready to work on different bilateral relationships for specific products, not considering what was usually taken care of by the European Union. Italy's political choices can no longer limit themselves to discussing whether to tackle the international markets, as now they need to consider how to do it."
"Unfortunately, in Italy, the issue of food safety is the responsibility of the Ministry of Health for the veterinary service and the Ministry of Agriculture for phytopathologies and then everything is multiplied for the number of Regions. If we want to compete in this scenario, we need to aggregate all these function under a single agency."
