EU seeks tariff countermeasures as Spanish olive duties hint at looming U.S. trade war

The request was filed at a meeting of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) after Washington challenged “the amount of retaliation proposed by the EU ($35 million annually)”, a Geneva-based trade official said.

The EU request for DSB authorisation to impose counter-measures on imports from the United States is intended “to compensate for the US’s failure to comply with an earlier panel ruling faulting US anti-dumping and countervailing duties on ripe olives from Spain”, the source said.

“A WTO arbitrator will now determine the appropriate level of counter-measures,” the trade official said.

During the DSB meeting at the WTO’s Geneva headquarters, a US representative clarified that in a letter dated Friday, Washington “objected to the level of suspension of concessions or other obligations proposed by the EU”.

Under WTO rules, if a country is found in fault, it must make amends without delay.

If not, the complaining country can impose retaliatory measures.

During Donald Trump’s first term as US president, his administration slapped extra tariffs on Spain’s iconic agricultural export in 2018, considering their olives were subsidised and being dumped on the US market at prices below their real value.

Following a complaint from the EU, a panel of experts appointed by the WTO’s DSB ruled in 2021 that the steep import duties violated international trade laws and demanded that the United States rectify the situation.

Washington did not appeal against that ruling, and later maintained that it had made the required changes.

But the EU disagreed and called for a WTO compliance panel to evaluate the situation.

In its ruling in February, that panel found that the EU had demonstrated that “the United States has failed to bring its measures into conformity with the adopted DSB recommendations and rulings”.