STORY: Spain’s black olive exporters were slapped with harsh tariffs in U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term.
Only four major players remain among the 25 Spanish exporters active before those tariffs, industry figures show.
Now, they’re warning it will be tough to survive the extra 15% that’s coming under the European Union’s latest trade deal with the United States.
Spain is the world’s top table olive exporter.
Its share of the U.S. black olive market plunged from 49% in 2017 to 19% in 2024.
Agro Sevilla is one of the original survivors. Here’s CEO Julio Roda.
“The U.S. represents 22% of the black olive market globally. For Agro Sevilla it was 25% of our production.”
Roda said sales of Spanish black olives to the U.S. dropped by 70% in the first year.
Tariffs of more than 30%, imposed at the request of Californian growers, hit hard – alongside a severe drought.
But the tax was only on black olives – not green olives, olive oil, or semi-processed olives.
So, Spanish farmers bumped up green olive sales.
And diversified their markets – shifting focus to Europe and the Middle East, while also venturing into Asia.
Farmer Gabriel Cabello, who is president of Andalusia’s Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, said fresh ideas helped too, like pairing the olives with salmon and cheese.
“We began to think, perhaps those black olives that we couldn’t sell in the US, we could stuff them with something our clients wanted? So we proposed different kinds to the Asian and Eastern Europe markets, our innovation team gave us new and innovative products that we offered to our clients, and they were successful.”
The U.S. measures failed to bolster domestic growers.
And global imports of table olives rebounded, 2024 figures show, including from Spain.
But the new tariffs are worrying Roda, whose U.S. sales just began to recover two years ago.
“It’s not good for the Spanish olives, European olives, or any other agrifood products that could be affected.”
The Spanish Ministry of Agriculture estimates it has lost nearly $280 million in black olive sales since the tariffs were introduced.
That’s almost a third of the total export value from the last harvest.
