Californias olive trade case shows the right way to defend American agriculture

U.S. agriculture producers and those who value American-produced food need to pay attention to the California olive industry’s trade case against Spanish ripe olives. It is an important case with broad policy implications on Europe’s protectionist farm policies, effective U.S. trade enforcement tools, and the American-produced food supply chain. The case originally arose from an all-too-common problem facing American farmers and businesses. Several years ago, California family olive farmers and processing interests began losing their U.S. market to dumped and heavily subsidized olive imports from Spain. For sheer survival reasons, they filed an import relief case and prevailed. The U.S.…