Andrea Illy, president of Illycaffè, a global brand present in the US for over forty years, speaks on the events that have occurred in Washington in recent days, even in the context of a difficult economic-political situation, such as the one we are experiencing in our country. The Group has a turnover of 520.5 million Euros (2019), has 1,405 employees and the US branch (Illy Caffe North America) is located in Rye Brook, New York.

The Trieste-based company aims to export to USA, with a market completely different from the Italian one. “We have been in the US for at least forty years, it is our second market, after the Italian one. We are a global brand, present in over 140 countries, with two thirds of sales outside Italy. In order to continue growing globally, we need a larger domestic market than the Italian one. We chose the United States because it is the first market in the world in terms of value for coffee, there is a segmentation that rewards high quality coffee, of which we were in part the architects, at least in the initial stages, and we can bring an offer very interesting, given that gourmet coffee represents a gigantic 'Italian sounding'. If 'italian' has to be, then let's make it 'authentic' as well as 'sounding'", Illy comments.

The president of the company continues, explaining that in the US there is not an employment problem but a wage problem, due to a low-inflation economy. "And this type of perspective leads the population to exasperation. This phenomenon must be read together with the enormous complexity that our society is facing in recent years. Ours is a society that is systemically unsustainable, from an economic point of view, because economic growth is public debt pumped up with aggressive monetary policies, from a social point of view, with problems linked to integration and inclusiveness, and finally, from a climate point of view. What happened in recent days is one of the many 'fibrillations' that tell us that we are close to a change of state. The hope is that this signal is also a source of a renewal of politics that cannot go on with the pencil at the polls. We must become a little smarter. It is certainly the end of an era, of an old way of doing politics".

Will Joe Biden's administration be able to rule strongly? According to Illy, this will depend on the leadership of the new president and his ability to overcome Trump's revenge and those 74 million voters who perhaps do not identify with the Capitol Hill attackers. "From an economic point of view, for Biden, a big help could come from the green economy: thanks to the Senate, the US green policy could become very aggressive, triggering a sort of competitive 'war' between the US, Europe and China, with investments really large, in the trillions of dollars, which will allow us to reach our climate goals. China has declared that it will become 'carbon free' in 2060. Whether or not it will keep its promises depends on the large question mark due to the fact that we are talking about a country that is not a democracy”.