EU Accepts 15% Tariffs on Olive Oil Exports to U.S.

Summary

The European Union has agreed to accept United States-imposed tar­iffs of 15 per­cent on table olives and olive oil as part of a wider trade deal, pend­ing rat­i­fi­ca­tion by its 27 mem­ber states. The deal has sparked back­lash from the olive oil sec­tor, with Spain warn­ing of a sig­nif­i­cant com­pet­i­tive loss com­pared to other major pro­duc­ers, and Italy esti­mat­ing a €140 mil­lion impact on olive oil exports.

The European Union has agreed to accept United States-imposed tar­iffs of 15 per­cent on table olives and olive oil as part of a wider trade deal.

While a polit­i­cal agree­ment was reached between U.S. President Donald J. Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland, the E.U.’s 27 mem­ber states still must rat­ify the agree­ment before it comes into force.

The announce­ment of the polit­i­cal agree­ment was greeted enthu­si­as­ti­cally by Trump, with tepid sup­port com­ing from European cap­i­tals.

See Also:Europe Continues to Liberalize Imports While Export Uncertainty Grows

However, the back­lash from the olive oil sec­tor has been swift, mainly from Spain, where the olive oil exports were cited as par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­a­ble to tar­iffs by the country’s econ­omy min­is­ter in July.

The trade deal is ​“bad news, whichever way you look at it, for our sec­tor,” Ignacio Silva, the pres­i­dent of Deoleo, wrote on LinkedIn. ​“We should con­tinue to demand that the nego­ti­a­tion does not stop at this time and that, above all, con­crete and imme­di­ate aid for our com­pa­nies is defined.”

Indeed, the European Commission acknowl­edged that the polit­i­cal deal is not legally bind­ing and ​“the E.U. and U.S. will fur­ther nego­ti­ate.” Already, offi­cials in France are push­ing for an exemp­tion to tar­iffs on cham­pagne, other wines and spir­its. 

Rafael Pico, the deputy direc­tor of the Spanish Association of the Olive Oil Export Industry and Trade (Asoliva), said the deal rep­re­sents a ​“com­pet­i­tive loss” for European coun­tries com­pared to other major pro­duc­ers. 

He warned that unless Spanish offi­cials also push for an exemp­tion for olive oil, the world’s largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­try would lose sig­nif­i­cant ground to Turkey and Morocco, both of which still face the base­line ten per­cent tar­iff.

Spain exports an esti­mated €6 bil­lion of olive oil annu­ally, of which €1 bil­lion is des­tined for the U.S. Overall, olive oil exports account for 12 per­cent of Spanish agri-food exports by value, with the U.S. olive oil mar­ket account­ing for two per­cent of total agri-food exports.

“We will con­tinue work­ing with all stake­hold­ers to defend the inter­ests of Spanish olive oil in national and inter­na­tional forums,” Pico said. ​“We can­not allow a deci­sion of this nature to under­mine decades of effort and invest­ment in one of the most demand­ing and valu­able mar­kets in the world.”

In Italy, Coldiretti warned that extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers and exporters would be among the hard­est hit sec­tors. The pow­er­ful agri­cul­tural union esti­mated that the tar­iffs would have a €140 mil­lion impact on Italian olive oil exports, which are worth more than €937 mil­lion.

“This agree­ment penal­izes the very prod­ucts that are sym­bols of Made in Italy, prod­ucts that have won over American con­sumers thanks to their qual­ity, trace­abil­ity, and con­nec­tion to the ter­ri­tory,” Coldiretti sec­re­tary-gen­eral Vincenzo Gesmundo said. ​“The risk is a decline in sales and a surge in ​‘Italian-sound­ing’ prod­ucts, with seri­ous dam­age to our pro­duc­ers and the image of Italian agri-food.”

While offi­cials in Greece offi­cially called the deal ​“pos­i­tive,” they acknowl­edged that table olive and olive oil exports, worth €100 mil­lion and €30 mil­lion, respec­tively, would be among the prod­ucts most dra­mat­i­cally impacted by the tar­iffs.

“The impo­si­tion of uni­form tar­iffs on high-value-added prod­ucts, includ­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, indus­trial and agri-food exports, may hurt the com­pet­i­tive­ness of com­pa­nies that sup­port crit­i­cal shares of the Greek econ­omy,” said Yannis Bratakos, pres­i­dent of the Hellenic Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“Particular atten­tion is needed to pro­tect iconic Greek prod­ucts, such as olive oil, feta and wines, which risk being bur­dened by the new regime,” he added.

Meanwhile, José Eduardo Carvalho, pres­i­dent of the Portuguese Industrial Association, which also serves as a cham­ber of com­merce, called the 15 per­cent tar­iff an improve­ment from the pre­vi­ous threat of a 30 per­cent tar­iff and added that the polit­i­cal agree­ment pro­vides cer­tainty for exporters for the first time since Trump’s elec­tion vic­tory in November 2024.

“But it’s worse than the zero tar­iff sought by the European Union,” he added. ​“Some com­pa­nies with greater expo­sure to the North American mar­ket are con­sid­er­ing direct invest­ment strate­gies in the U.S. as a way to cir­cum­vent tar­iff bar­ri­ers, although these deci­sions require care­ful and thought­ful analy­sis.”

According to World Bank data, Portugal exported more than 3.3 mil­lion kilo­grams of vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil to the U.S. in 2023, val­ued at €11.8 mil­lion.