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The Agora => Greek News => Topic started by: Maik on Monday, 28 October, 2019 @ 14:24:04
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Not a peachy outlook: Greek producers despair over Trump's new tariffs
A tariff war between the European Union and the United States is threatening to buckle one of Greece's most buoyant export sectors, which survived a decade of economic crises but possibly not President Donald Trump.
The Trump's administration decision to impose an additional 25% tariff on a range of EU products in retaliation for EU aircraft subsidies, hits products from Scotch to Italian cheeses and French wines.
In Greece, its prized canned peach.
Greece is the world's biggest exporter of tinned peaches with about one fifth of its 250,000 tonnes annual production absorbed by the U.S. market. Formerly subject to an import levy of 18%, the new tariffs - part of WTO-authorized countermeasures to Airbus subsidies - will increase the total import duty to the United States to 43%.
The people of northern Greece are not impressed.
"Trump would do well to behave himself and let us get to work so we can have a livelihood," said peach farmer Tasos Halkidis. "We don't want this tariff business."
This fertile plain straddling the regions of Imathia and Pella in central Macedonia is one massive peach orchard. A sea of pink greets visitors in the spring, when the peaches are in bloom.
Standing in a huge warehouse piled high with millions of aluminium cans, 63-year-old Kostas Apostolou, head of the Greek Canners Association, says the dispute is threatening their livelihood and will potentially shut them out of their biggest market.
"Why are they punishing us?" Apostolou told Reuters.
https://kfgo.com/news/articles/2019/oct/28/not-a-peachy-outlook-greek-producers-despair-over-trumps-new-tariffs/951458