US and Spain seeking to solve the black olives’ conflict
The complains against the Spanish table olives marked the Madrid agenda of the US Secretary of Agriculture, being the first Secretary of the Tump Administration to visit Spain.
After meeting with the Minister of Agriculture and several people from the Secretariat of State of Commerce, Sonny Purdue stated that he hoped that the open trade dispute against Spanish imports of table black olives would be “favorably solved for both parties”.
“We both agree that we want it to be solved within the essence of free trade and our wonderful bilateral relationship in many agricultural themes”, Purdue said.
He reminded that the ongoing litigation on black olives wasn’t initiated by the US Government but it was the result of a complaint from a Californian group of companies. In this sense, he pointed out that, according to WTO rules, when a country receives such a complaint, it’s obliged to investigate it.
Washington’s decision will be based on whether there’re dumping “evidences” or “the granting of subsides prohibited by the WTO”.
In addition, he called on the Spanish authorities to “be more open” to trade with the US, in relation to the EU “restrictive” policies.
Asked about the EU sector’s fears to US protectionism, he said that there’s no evidence of this, but on the contrary, the US is the market “more open to the rest of the world”. In that regard, he expressed his concern about the EU’s “protectionism” towards US cattle and beef products. According to Purdue, the EU limitations “aren’t based on science but on negative perceptions”, and he even accused the EU of applying restrictive policies “hiding” behind “phytosanitary or sanitary” arguments.
“Let’s be transparent in the labelling and let the European consumer choose”, the US Secretary of Agriculture added.
(Source: EfeAgro)