“Today, there are few ingredients more essential to American cooks than olive oil.” We don’t say it, the New York Times says it. And it makes sense. After all, the only country that consumes more oil than the US is Italy and, honestly, not for long.
However, what could seem like excellent news has turned into a real nightmare in recent weeks.
Trump’s long shadow. And what does Donald Trump have to do with all this? That the US consumes a lot of oil, but produces almost nothing. 97% of the oil consumed in the country comes from Spain and Italy. The problem is that the future American president has been promising for months (more or less directly) to impose tariffs on oil (and what is not oil).
It is not the first time this has happened.
Tariffs + inflation = a lot of instability. In recent years, a liter of olive oil in the US market has gone from about 10 euros in 2021 to the 20 it currently costs. Tariffs would, logically, cause prices to rise even further.
At least, that is what the tariffs proposed by Trump seek: to punish wayward partners by making their access to the North American market difficult (because, in this case, the idea that they are going to protect local companies does not make much sense).
The national farmers themselves recognize it: oil production cannot grow from one year to the next at the rate that these tariffs would require.
What will happen? It is true that the return to normality of the large producing regions will cause prices to drop and it is not clear to what extent the tariffs will produce the impact they seek. But the uncertainties in the sector have only begun to grow.
Above all, because no one knows very well what the White House is going to do. In his previous administration, Trump applied a 25% tariff on oil; but only to bottling. This caused many companies to import the oil in bulk and begin to bottle it on North American soil.
If the tariff were extended to bulk oil, the situation could even harm the North American sector itself: right now they do not have the necessary technology to extract the oil correctly. We thought that the sector had begun to emerge from the tunnel and the truth is that it has come face to face with another crisis.
Imagen | Claudio Schwarz | Jacob Owens
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