Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2019-05-27)

34

economy,theculture,”saysFidelRomeroRuíz,the

mayorofthetownof4,200.

Thetariffsareunlikelytobeliftedanytimesoon,

andgrowerssaytheirimpactwillworsenthisyear

ascontractsarerepricedtotakeintoaccountlower

U.S.demand.Brusselsisdisputingthelevieson

behalfofSpainattheWorldTradeOrganization,

butthatcoulddragonforseveralyears.EUofficials

saythey’llasktheWTOtosetupa panelofexperts

toanalyzethecaseattheendofMay,a signthatthe

U.S.isn’tbackingdownonthetariffsandthatbilat-

eraltalkshavebrokendown.

Washington’shardballtacticshavemademany

realizetheyweretooreliantontheU.S.,andexport-

ersarenowtargetingmarketsincludingChina,

India,andPakistan,illustratinghowTrump’spro-

tectionistpoliciesareremappingglobaltrade

one-quarter of the global market for table olives.

Some 20% of the country’s exports of 154,000 met-

ric tons went to the U.S. in 2017. The Trump admin-

istration hasn’t targeted table olive shipments from

other producers in Southern Europe or North Africa.

Timothy Carter, chief executive officer of one

of the country’s biggest processors of domestic

olives, Bell-Carter Foods in California, says the sub-

sidies create unfair pricing. Testifying before the

U.S. International Trade Commission in July 2017,

he said, “If we lower our prices to try to keep our

customers from switching to cheap imports from

Spain, we must also lower the prices we pay our

growers for raw olives, and they will not be able to

make ends meet.”

The tariffs took effect in August, triggering a 45%

drop in 2018 in Spanish black table olive exports to

the U.S. Volumes fell an additional 10% in the first

quarter of this year from the same period last year,

according to Asemesa. The duties have cost hun-

dreds of workers in southern Spain their jobs. At

García’s farm, a 45-minute drive from Seville, there

were four employees this spring, down from 15 a

year ago. “A lot of people live off the olive industry,”

says Manuel Sánchez, one of the workers who kept

his job, as he prunes the decades-old trees.

Sixty miles east, the town of La Roda de Andalucía

is home to Agro Sevilla Group, a cooperative of

4,000 growers and the world’s largest exporter of

table olives. The town is surrounded by an endless

horizon of trees, whose silvery-sage leaves against

the red-brick earth are the palette of southern Spain.

“Imagine what that sea of olive trees means for the

◀ Bohorquez in an

olive grove near Arahal

in southern Spain

MARCELO

DEL

POZO/BLOOMBERG.

DATA,

LEFT:

EUROSTAT,

ASEMESA. DATA, RIGHT: WELLS FARGO

A Key Crop Sees Fewer U.S. Buyers

Hectares of planted olive trees

in the EU, 2017

Metric tons of black

table olivesexported

from SpaintotheU.S.

Spain

2.5m Portugal 0.3m

Croatia, France, Cyprus, and Slovenia 44k

Italy

1.1m

Greece

0.7m

2015 2018

34k

17

0

May 27, 2019