The European Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, held a meeting this Thursday with the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, to discuss the removal of tariffs on Spanish table olives, which should have been eliminated last January.
This has also said the vice president of the European Commission in a message on the social network Twitter, which has detailed that both officials have exchanged »views» on the case of Spanish olives.
The meeting takes place after last January 14 Washington failed to comply with the ruling of the World Trade Organization (WTO) against its tariffs on Spanish black olives, issued in November 2021, under the Trump Administration.
In August 2018, the United States imposed tariffs of 35 percent on the import of black olives from Spain following a complaint from the California producing sector. These complaints accused the Spanish black olive industry of selling at low cost and also considered that the CAP subsidies received by the sector were ‘dumping’ for the American market.
Since then, Spanish exports of black olives have fallen by 68 percent in volume, which is why the Spanish sector has lost competitiveness, as denounced on several occasions by the Agri-Food Cooperatives of Spain.
Meanwhile, Dombrovskis and Raimondo have discussed other issues of interest for EU-US trade, such as export controls or cooperation on steel and aluminum.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
