Malaga province growers continue to suffer from table olive tariff introduced by Donald Trump in USA

Until 2018, any farmer with olive groves could export their product to the United States of America.

It was a huge market with growth potential and helped consolidate the 'made in Malaga' tag for table olives. But then the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House brought the situation to a screeching halt. From being the main exporting country, the tariff policy applied by the Republican politician closed the borders to Malaga olives, and the market collapsed.

The appointment of Joe Biden in January 2021 raised hopes in the sector that the new Democratic Party president would lift the tariffs, but he didn’t. Instead, more than two years after taking office, Biden continues to punish table olives by maintaining the tariff policy of his predecessor.

The sector has accumulated losses of 170 million since 2018, the year the tariffs came into force. It has sparked agricultural association, Asaja, to ask the central government to make a greater diplomatic effort to ensure that Malaga olives are once again exported to the United States.

Asaja president, Baldomero Bellido, said: "The European Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, held a meeting on 2 March with the US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, to discuss the removal of tariffs on Spanish olives, which should have been eliminated. But the reality is that nothing has changed”.

“The United States has been imposing tariffs on table olives since 2018, a measure which goes against what the World Trade Organisation ruled in 2021," Bellido told SUR.

The Spanish Association of Table Olive Exporters and Industrialists (Asemesa) Secretary General, Antonio de la Mora, is also calling for more political action to resolve the issue.

"The situation is still the same. The only thing the United States has done is to slightly reduce tariffs from 35% to 31%. We are still waiting for the European Union to follow the steps set out in the WTO to force the United States to eliminate tariffs. And that means the imposition of retaliatory measures, without a doubt," he said.

Complaint

Farmers are also outraged that they have received no compensation from the European Union or other administrations.

"Up to now, the sector has not received any compensatory aid, neither from the European Union nor from the Spanish Government, with the exception of a limited contribution from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism for legal defence," Asemesa said.