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Hun­dreds of olive farm­ers, oil pro­duc­ers and busi­ness rep­re­sen­ta­tives gath­ered in front of the United States con­sulate in Sevilla, Spain last Thurs­day to protest pro­posed Amer­i­can tar­iffs on Span­ish olives.

The pro­tes­tors gath­ered to denounce the planned tar­iffs, call­ing them ​“unjust” and ​“abu­sive” as well as rais­ing con­cerns about their poten­tially dis­as­trous reper­cus­sions for the region’s exports and employ­ment.

The tar­iffs are set to be dis­cussed by the U.S. Inter­na­tional Trade Com­mis­sion (USITC) this week and, if the com­mis­sion decides to enact them, will come into force later this month. In 2017, Span­ish olive exports to the US totaled about $67 mil­lion.

“We are very dis­ap­pointed with the US Depart­ment of Commerce’s deci­sion to impose anti-sub­sidy and anti-dump­ing duties on Span­ish table olive imports, espe­cially since the prod­uct is very pop­u­lar amongst US con­sumers,” José María Castilla, a lob­by­ist for the national wing of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Young Farm­ers (ASAJA), said. ​“It is unjus­ti­fied and dis­pro­por­tion­ate and it goes against our com­mon agri­cul­tural pol­icy.”

Miguel López, the Sec­re­tary-Gen­eral of COAG Andalu­sia, said that 8,000 jobs are directly at risk and two mil­lion more are indi­rectly at risk because of the pro­posed tar­iffs. Already, he said, Agro Sevilla has laid off some of their employ­ees.

Reit­er­amos nue­stro rec­hazo abso­luto a la fijación de cualquier tipo de aran­cel a la aceituna de mesa, que ahora EEUU ha incre­men­tado hasta el 34,75%. Es una medida injusta que provo­caría grandes pér­di­das en el sec­tor andaluz que gen­era 2 mil­lones de jor­nales y 8.000 empleos.

— Rodrigo Sánchez Haro (@rodrigosanhar) June 12, 2018

Junta insiste en que el aran­cel a la aceituna de mesa es ​“despro­por­cionado” y pide al Gob­ierno que defienda al sec­tor https://t.co/z56iEjUSCh vía @epandalucia

— José Muñoz (@pepemsanchez) Jan­u­ary 29, 2018

“Because of the tar­iffs and after six years in the com­pany, they have left him unem­ployed and he has had to leave Andalu­sia to find work,” López said. ​“He had a life project and every­thing has been bro­ken.”

López insisted that Span­ish olive pro­duc­ers are in line with Euro­pean Union and World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion rules and called for the Euro­pean Union and Span­ish gov­ern­ment to defend the sec­tor from what he termed ​“arbi­trary” tar­iffs.

“Faced with this atti­tude that [U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald] Trump is main­tain­ing against all imports, and because this vio­lates all inter­na­tional agree­ments, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion has to posi­tion and stand up for itself already,” he said. ​“We also have to be defended.”

The Euro­pean Com­mis­sion has already con­demned the tar­iffs on Span­ish olives with a spokesper­son label­ing them ​“pro­tec­tion­ist” and promis­ing action from the Euro­pean Trade Com­mis­sion.

The pro­posed tar­iffs stem from anti-dump­ing com­plaints lodged by two Cal­i­for­nia com­pa­nies (Bell-Carter Foods, Inc and Musco Fam­ily Olive Co) last year. They have been com­pounded by anti-sub­sidy charges from the US Depart­ment of Com­merce, which argues that Span­ish olive farm­ers and pack­agers also ben­e­fit from ​“unfair sub­si­dies”.

If the USITC decides to rat­ify the pro­posed tar­iffs, which most trade observers believe is highly likely, then import duties on Span­ish olives will rise up to 27 per­cent on July 24. The tar­iffs are said to cover all types of Span­ish olives, includ­ing all shapes, sizes and col­ors; pit­ted and unpit­ted; and whole, sliced, minced and wedged.

“The Depart­ment of Com­merce will ensure a full and fair assess­ment of the facts, and, if the rules are being bro­ken, will act swiftly to halt any unfair trade prac­tices,” US Sec­re­tary of Com­merce Wilbur Ross said. ​“The United States is com­mit­ted to a free, fair and rec­i­p­ro­cal trade with Spain.”

Anto­nio de Mora, the Sec­re­tary-Gen­eral of the Span­ish Asso­ci­a­tion of Exporters and Indus­tri­al­ists of Table Olives (ASEMA) believes that facts will trump feel­ings and instead of attend­ing the protests, has been hard at work prepar­ing a legal case against the tar­iffs.

“ASEMESA is prepar­ing its defense in con­tact with the national and Euro­pean admin­is­tra­tions, with the assur­ance that the argu­ments on which these accu­sa­tions are based are false, for which rea­son we are gath­er­ing all the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion and evi­dence,” he said.

• COAG Andalu­sia


• Europa Press