China has opposed European tariffs on its electric vehicles. First victim: Spanish pig

Spain is the country that sells the most pork to China. This is also the first “collateral damage” of the war on electric vehicles.

The earthquake is currently affecting the entire meat sector in Spain. Barely a week after the European Commission approved new tariffs on Chinese electric cars, Beijing took the step of announcing an investigation into European pork that mainly affects Spain.

This already happened several years ago during the conflict with the US in the Trump era: every time Europe enters into a “trade war”, Spain ends up as “collateral damage”.

What’s happened? After months of investigation into “electric car subsidies from China,” the European Commission last week approved a set of provisional tariffs that will take effect from July and will be a significant game changer amid debate over the future of the European car industry. industry. And “substantially” is not an exaggeration: we are talking about tariffs from 17 to 38%.

Everyone knew China would take action, and as we explained in Hatak, Spain (along with France) played a major role in these tariffs. No one knew exactly what consequences this would bring.

This mystery has just been cleared up. Because Beijing has just announced that it is going to launch an anti-dumping investigation (ie the same type that the Commission carries out on its cars) that affects European pork and all its by-products. This is a serious warning for seafarers, which primarily concerns the Netherlands, Denmark and, of course, Spain.

Although, as far as we know, this has been brewing for several months, the timing leaves no room for doubt. The investigation will cover all pork intended for human consumption (fresh or frozen cuts, as well as all types of offal). According to Reuters, it will begin on June 17 and could cause great damage to our country.

Nervousness in Spain. And although the European Union said it would ensure the investigation complies with World Trade Organization standards, China’s statements caused an earthquake in Spain, which asked that everything possible be done to avoid tariffs on meat. .

And this is completely understandable. Spain is not only the largest pork exporter to China in all of Europe; It is the largest exporter to China in the world, ahead of the US and Brazil. About 23% of the pork imported by China leaves Spain: almost $2 billion.

Almost 2 billion, making the Asian giant the main recipient of our pork exports. And this, logically, puts Spain in a very difficult situation.

Image | Javier Abalos | / Richard

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