The European Union and the U.S. will duke it out over olives.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Tuesday that the government would “very aggressively” fight the European Union over whether it can apply tariffs to olive imports. The U.S. has claimed the Europe is “dumping” its olives in the states, hurting domestic growers.
The EU is challenging the U.S. on the matter before the World Trade Organization.
“We believe that the EU’s case is without merit, and we intend to fight it very aggressively,” Lighthizer said in an announcement Tuesday.
The statement comes as the U.S. and EU are gearing up for a new round of trade talks later this year. The U.S. has pushed to make the EU’s agricultural subsidies an issue in the talks, but EU officials have other ideas.
“We have made very clear agriculture will not be included,” EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told reporters in D.C. in January following a meeting with Lighthizer. The date for the talks has not been determined.
The Commerce Department was granted authority by U.S. International Trade Commission last year to place tariffs of 7 to 27 percent on EU olive imports, following an antidumping complaint lodged by two California companies last year. The department said that the domestic industry had been “materially injured by reason of imports of ripe olives from Spain.” The EU notified the U.S. Tuesday that it would challenge the case before the WTO.
“The purpose of the global trading system is to promote market-efficient outcomes that reward hard work and innovation. It would be unfortunate if the WTO were to encourage the type of unfair and market-distorting trade that was at issue in this case,” Lighthizer said.
