With lower olive oil stocks Spain faces a tariff wall and unfair competition against its peers

Spain finds itself in a pickle, being positioned at a total disadvantage compared to other European producers, mostly in relation to goods such as olive oil and green olives.
With the US decision to maintain the 25% customs duty that weighs on packaged oil and green olives of Spanish origin, leaves the coutry at a detrimental competitiveness compared to other European producers such as Italy, Greece and Portugal. Agro-food cooperatives in Andalusia qualified the diplomatic negotiations as an"absolute failure", as they did not achieve the total elimination of tariffs that, in less than nine months, caused the bottling of olive oils and table olives, previously affected by a rate close to 35% for 'anti-dumping' and anti-subsidies. US is the spanish main market outside the EU.

At the end of the season, according to the campaign, the stock of olive oil will be under 500,000 tons, after the first estimates indicated that it will not reach the 2018-2019 crop record figure, when more than 1.7 million tons of olive oil was then produced. In addition, important falls will be registered in the production of the countries of the Mediterranean arc, such as Italy and Tunisia. Specifically, of the 27,000 tons imported in June by the United States, only 1,700 were of Spanish origin, reflecting that the Spanish origin product is being displaced by its EU competitors.