The WTO authorizes Brussels to impose retaliation against the United States for tariffs against black olives

News in the oldest commercial dispute between Spain and the United States. US tariffs on black olives, which date back to August 1, 2018 under the first Trump administration and which, currently, are up to 31%. An arbitration panel of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has authorized the European Union (EU) to impose on the United States retaliation worth 11.7 million euros ($13.64 million) for failing to comply with previous decisions of this organization against tariffs on black olives imported from Spain.

The arbitration indicates that the United States has not complied with the previous ruling of June 14, 2023which indicated that the tariffs did not comply with the organization’s trade regulations and should be corrected. The agreed figure is less than that requested by the EUwhich had announced in November 2024 its intention to dictate countermeasures worth about 30 million euros ($35 million), which it later reduced to 26.1 million euros ($30.5 million). The tariffs that the EU is authorized to impose on imports from the United States can be adjusted according to inflationaccording to the arbitration panel, which indicates that the EU can now ask the dispute settlement body of the WTO permission to suspend concessions or other obligations for the aforementioned annual amount.

More than 260 million euros in losses

The accumulated losses for the Spanish table olive sector since the beginning of this dispute already reached 260 million euros at the end of last year. The EU has attached great importance to this trade conflict from the beginning of the dispute, since feared that a WTO decision favorable to the US was used by this country to challenge Europe’s entire agricultural subsidy policy that is under the umbrella of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

A reduced tariff

Following previous WTO decisions, the US Department of Commerce has reduced its tariffs on black olives Spanish from 35 to 31%, something that Brussels considered totally insufficient, which is why it prolonged the case within the WTO. Black olives are used in the United States mainly for making pizzas, and Spanish exports of the product to that economy amounted to about 70 million euros annuallyaccording to figures from 2017, the year in which Washington began applying these tariffs.