Spanish Olive Farmers Concerned Over Possible 'Protectionist' US Measures

The U.S. Department of Commerce has recently launched an inves­ti­ga­tion to deter­mine whether or not Spanish olive farm­ers are dump­ing their prod­ucts in the US mar­ket on top of being unfairly favored by the Common Agricultural Policy program’s sub­ven­tions and thus vio­lat­ing fair trade laws. European table olive pro­duc­ers are grow­ing con­cerned over the pos­si­bil­ity of fac­ing harsh pro­tec­tion­ist mea­sures being read­ied as soon as of September of this year.

On June 22, 2017, the Coalition for Fair Trade in Ripe Olives (CFTRO) filed a peti­tion regard­ing pos­si­ble dump­ing and unfair sub­si­diza­tion prac­tices being con­ducted in Spain in favor of domes­tic olive pro­duc­ers. The Coalition’s mem­bers include the American com­pa­nies Bell-Carter Foods and Musco Family Olive Co., respec­tively the largest American table olive pro­ducer and lead­ing table olive sup­plier.
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The two com­pa­nies claimed Spanish table olive pro­duc­ers have been sell­ing at lower prices in the U.S. than their prices in Spain. ​“Dumped and sub­si­dized Spanish ripe olives are severely impact­ing our indus­try,” said the CEO of Bell-Carter Foods, Tim Carter.

Dumping, which is viewed as a means to hurt American pro­duc­ers, is ille­gal under U.S. law. Moreover, the CFTRO’s mem­bers have denounced the fact that Spanish olive pro­duc­ers have been receiv­ing sub­stan­tial finan­cial aid from the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) pro­gram, a sub­sidy for European farm­ers that their American coun­ter­parts have claimed skews the play­ing field even more.

The U.S. International Trade Commission has been con­duct­ing an offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion to pon­der the legit­i­macy of the CFTRO’s peti­tion since July 22, 2017. If the gov­ern­ment does uncover unfair prac­tices through dump­ing and sub­si­diza­tion it could announce sanc­tions on Spanish table olive imports as soon as September of 2017.

An offi­cial state­ment from the Department read: ​“If the ITC deter­mines that there is a rea­son­able indi­ca­tion that imports of ripe olives from Spain mate­ri­ally injure, or threaten mate­r­ial injury to, the domes­tic indus­try in the United States, the inves­ti­ga­tions will con­tinue, and the Department will be sched­uled to announce its pre­lim­i­nary coun­ter­vail­ing duty (CVD) deter­mi­na­tion in September 2017 and its pre­lim­i­nary antidump­ing (AD) deter­mi­na­tion in November 2017, though these dates may be extended. If the ITC’s deter­mi­na­tions are neg­a­tive, the inves­ti­ga­tions will be ter­mi­nated.” An exhaus­tive sched­ule of the inves­ti­ga­tion is avail­able on the Department of Commerce’s offi­cial web­site.

The threat of eco­nom­i­cal penal­iza­tion has loomed over the Spanish table olive indus­try since Bell-Carter Foods and Musco Family Olive Co. filed the offi­cial peti­tion. And with rea­son. The two American com­pa­nies have sug­gested imports of Spanish olives should be taxed at a rate of 73 per­cent, to be even­tu­ally increased as high as 223 per­cent. Such fig­ures have pushed Copa-Cogeca, a lead­ing European asso­ci­a­tion of farm­ers and agri-coop­er­a­tives, to qual­ify them as ​“pro­tec­tion­ist” mea­sures.

Copa-Cogeca Secretary General Pekka Pesonen declared in a let­ter sent on July 25 to Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan, ​“Copa and Cogeca con­sider it unac­cept­able that the main EU agri-food export mar­ket – the USA – can impose pro­tec­tion­ist mea­sures against our prod­ucts with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion,” he wrote.

“Copa and Cogeca argue that the only rea­son Spanish pro­duc­ers can pro­duce black table olives so com­pet­i­tively is due to their efforts to reduce pro­duc­tion costs, com­bined with invest­ment in key issues like qual­ity tech­nol­ogy,” he added.

Copa-Cogeca has fiercely denied the claims of unfair eco­nomic prac­tices and has stated that impos­ing high taxes on Spanish olive imports would con­sti­tute an unfair treat­ment of Spanish pro­duc­ers and claim they have always respected fair trade laws set by the World Trade Organization.

Last year, Spanish pro­duc­ers exported nearly 32,000 tons of olives to the United States with a value of $70.9 mil­lion.

• CNN Money


• EURACTIV


• US Department of Commerce