Spanish Exports of Bottled Olive Oil to U.S. Drop 80 Percent

Spanish bot­tled olive oil exports to the United States decreased by 80 per­cent in 2020 com­pared to 2019, accord­ing to Spain’s main agri­cul­tural coop­er­a­tive, Cooperativas Agro-ali­men­ta­rias.

Tariffs imposed in October 2019 by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion are blamed for the fall, which dam­aged the Spanish olive oil sec­tor dra­mat­i­cally.

The 25-per­cent tar­iffs on pack­aged Spanish vir­gin and non-vir­gin olive oils and sev­eral types of green table olives remain in place even after Trump left office in January.

“Olive oil orig­i­nat­ing in Spain that arrives pack­aged monthly in the United States does not even reach 700 tons. Before the impo­si­tion of tar­iffs, these vol­umes were about 10 times higher,” said Rafael Sánchez de Puerta, the pres­i­dent of Cooperativas Agro-ali­men­ta­rias. ​“In fact, we would have to go back to the early 1990s to find sim­i­lar fig­ures.”

According to trade data from the U.S. Department of Commerce ana­lyzed by the coop­er­a­tive, Tunisia and Portugal have been the main bene­fac­tors of the U.S. tar­iffs. Meanwhile, Italy remains the lead­ing bot­tled olive oil exporter.

Tunisian olive oil exports to the U.S. rose by 700 per­cent in 2020, while Portuguese exports grew by 800 per­cent.

“As the months go by, our role in the United States dimin­ishes,” Sánchez de Puerta said. ​“The unfair tar­iffs that we face have taken us out of the most impor­tant mar­ket out­side the European Union, after hav­ing made mil­lions in invest­ments dur­ing the last two decades.”

While President Joe Biden mainly focusses on his domes­tic agenda, pro­duc­ers con­tinue to pres­sure national and local author­i­ties to work with the Biden Administration to end the tar­iffs.

The dis­ap­point­ing trade news comes as Spain’s Food Information and Control Agency announced that the final esti­mates for the 2020 olive har­vest reached 1.40 mil­lion to 1.45 mil­lion tons.

While still above the rolling five-year aver­age, the yield was smaller than ini­tially thought.

The major­ity of the export decrease came as a result of revised fig­ures from Andalusia, which said that the region would pro­duce 250,000 fewer tons than ini­tially esti­mated. Damage from Storm Filomena in cen­tral Spain also fac­tored into the pro­duc­tion drop.

• Cooperativas Agro-ali­men­ta­rias
• Cooperativas Agro-ali­men­ta­rias