Olive oil, electronics, high-end watches, art and shisha tobacco: Malaga's exports to the US are under threat from Trump's tariffs

How is trade doing between Malaga and the United States? A detailed analysis of the sale and purchase of goods between both places throughout 2024 reveals some surprises. The product that most often springs to mind is olive oil, and yes, it is indeed the undisputed king of Malaga's exports to the US. Nor is it surprising that wine and olives are also well received by this overseas market. Yet there are other goods that are not so intuitively linked to Malaga: home automation control devices, solar panels, works of art, high-end watches and shisha tobacco also feature in the 'top 15' of Malaga's best-selling products on the US market. As for imports from the USA, various types of machinery, drones, boats and medicines come into this part of Spain from across the pond alongside more unusual products like golf carts, lawnmowers and battery clamps.

A total of 738 companies from Malaga exported some kind of product to the United States last year, of which 124 have maintained commercial relations with this country for the last four years, making them 'regular exporters'.

The United States is the fourth most important customer for Malaga exporters after France, Italy and Portugal. This is wholly due to olive oil. Of the 308 million euros in exports from Malaga to the US last year, almost 222 million (or 72% of the total) came from olive oil. In fact, it was thanks to the volume of sales and the high price achieved by olive oil that in 2024 the province reached an all-time record for export sales to this market and a trade surplus of more than 213 million euros with the US: for every euro that the United States invoices Malaga, Malaga bills that nation for three.

There are also other traditional agri-food products such as wine, olives and vinegar in the supply chain that Malaga exports to the United States. However, their proportion of the trade balance cannot be compared to that of olive oil. In 2024, Malaga winemakers sold over three million euros of white wine to the United States, to which must be added another 1.3 million euros for other wines. Tinned olives brought in over two million euros. In this 'top 15' of exports to the USA there are also other, less typical, food products such as vinegar, salted fish and saffron. Incidentally, it is not that this last product is grown in Malaga, but rather that one of the main exporting companies of this spice, Triselecta, has its headquarters here.

Still, Malaga's exporters are not just making a living from agriculture. The second largest contributor to Malaga's trade surplus with the US is "automatic instruments and apparatus for regulation and control". This is not self-explanatory, so an example would be the type of devices manufactured by Airzone, a company that specialises in air-conditioning control systems. This manufacturer owes 10% of its turnover to the US market, to which it attributes a "very high growth potential".

Other industrial products that frequently cross the Atlantic are solar panels. The curious thing is that they do so in both directions, because these devices appear on both the export list (with almost 5.7 million euros invoiced last year) and on the import list (worth almost 2.9 million euros).

Also in the electronics sector that, in the first instance, would seem to have little to do with Malaga, the United States buys electrical capacitors from here, such as those manufactured by TDK. They also buy electronic components for televisions and other audiovisual devices, like those produced by Denso Ten España (formerly Fujitsu).

One of the most surprising items in Malaga's 'Top 15' US exports are watches. The province is not in competition with Switzerland with its centuries-old skills in watchmaking: the four million euros sent to the USA from Malaga last year are for the high-end watches that American tourists bought in local jewellers during their stay on the Costa del Sol. When a non-EU traveller buys such an item in Spain, it counts as an export under the special regime for travellers.

"The attraction that Malaga has gained as a tourist destination and the regular flight schedule to New York have led to an increase in the arrival of visitors from the United States and Canada. Some of them take advantage of the trip to buy a high-end watch or piece of jewellery and benefit from the 21% IVA sales tax refund," says Miguel Molina, co-owner of jewellers Gómez y Molina. "They are high-priced items, so the savings are significant," he adds. He then takes the opportunity to suggest that the number of Guardia Civil officers at the airport who check invoices and IVA refund forms should be increased, as in summer there are "kilometre-long queues" that, in his opinion, project a "third-world image" of Malaga.

In recent years, a very special product has made its way into the ranking of Malaga's top exports across the North Atlantic: art. Under the heading "Paintings and drawings done entirely by hand", last year almost 916,000 euros were invoiced from Malaga to the United States. Javier Calleja's studio highlights the importance of art fairs such as Art Basel in Miami and the LA Art Show in Los Angeles. The Malaga artist starred in a solo exhibition in a New York gallery last year. In addition, there are art galleries across Malaga with a strong international presence such as Marbella's Yusto/Giner, whose art fair circuit always includes Miami.

The ranking of Malaga's main imports from the United States is dominated by three types of products: firstly, various types of vehicles and their components (aircraft, boats and golf carts), then different types of machinery (lawnmowers, agricultural machinery and turbogenerators) and lastly medicines, reagents and medical devices.