Trump attacks Spanish agricultural exports again

The United States Government has announced that it will impose tariffs on products imported from the European Union as of October 18, following the ruling of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Foreign Trade Office explained that tariffs will be increased by 10% of the large civil aircraft that the EU sells to the US and 25% to certain agricultural products, among the most prominent wine, oil, olives and cheeses.

The countries most affected by them will be France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Given this new measure, many agrarian organizations have expressed their disagreement with the approval of these tariffs:

The Coordinator of Farmers and Livestock Organizations (COAG) has denounced that “it is totally unfair and disproportionate that, once again, the agricultural sector is the pagan of an EU trade war that has nothing to do with the Spanish countryside. We end up suffering the consequences of agreements with third countries, in the case of the recent MERCOSUR, as well as disagreements, in this case in a conflict that has its origin in the aeronautical sector. We demand that the community authorities and the Spanish government protect the interests of our agriculture with a fast and balanced solution to avoid this conflict ending up by passing a new and expensive bill to our farmers and ranchers ”, were the words of Miguel Blanco, Secretary COAG General.

From the Agrarian Association of Young Farmers (ASAJA) they have assured that “this news means a new jug of cold water for agri-food producers and exporters, some of whom are already suffering from the imposition of unilateral tariffs, specifically black olives, which It has meant a very significant cut in Spanish olive exports to the US market. In addition to these specific tariffs for the countries of the Airbus consortium, we must add those that will be applied to the 28 EU member countries and that affect certain products derived from pork, fruits and vegetables, citrus, dairy and shellfish, among others ”.

For all these reasons, ASAJA claims the Government, despite being in office, to “multiply its efforts and strengthen the pressure before the community institutions, especially before the Commissioner of Commerce, Cecilia Maalstrom, the current Commissioner of Agriculture and future Commissioner of Commerce Phil Holgan, and the still president of the Juncker Commission, as well as the president-elect Ursula Von der Leyen, to find a satisfactory solution to the export interests of our producers, cooperatives and agri-food industries. We must remember that our agro-export sector is one of the main contributors to the economic recovery of the country and that it generates a large number of jobs and is made up of small and medium-sized businesses installed in rural areas, ”they said.

Specifically, from the Valencian association AVA-ASAJA, its president of, Cristóbal Aguado has ensured that “imposing a tariff from one day to another that represents a quarter of the value of production will make it very difficult to continue exporting our products as we came doing. If the European Commission does not avoid it, there will be considerable damage to both commercialization companies and farmers. Other competing countries like Morocco will seize the opportunity and, once displaced, it will be difficult to recover that market later. ”

“It has happened again as with the Russian veto – Aguado critic – when for a political problem outside of agriculture it was the farmers who paid for the broken dishes. Then Brussels neither gave us enough compensation for the losses caused nor facilitated the opening of alternative markets. Now, a problem derived from the subsidies granted to Airbus is the one that harms us again to the farmers, in this case in a particularly paradoxical way, since it is decided to sanction the agri-food productions with a tariff of 25% against 10% for aeronautical products, ”said Aguado.

The Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers has also positioned itself in this regard: “The United States once again shows its irresponsibility and playing with fire,” they have criticized from UPA. “They have the agri-food sector in their sights,” they lament. Farmers demand a strong and coordinated response from all affected countries, to solve a situation that can generate huge losses in the rural world of the entire continent.

“The World Trade Organization (WTO) can not consent to play with the food and livelihood of millions of people,” they said from UPA.