ASAJA Murcia, the agricultural professional organization, stated that the United States' new administration, headed by Joe Biden, could benefit Murcia's agricultural food sector.
"The new mandate of President Biden in the United States is magnificent news for the Murcian countryside, as we hope to reactivate citrus exports to this market, which is very important for our products," stated Alfonso Galvez Caravaca, the Secretary-General of ASAJA Murcia.
Juan de Dios Hernandez, a member of the Board of Directors of ASAJA Murcia and Manager of Export-Import DIALI, stated: “This is magnificent news. We hope it will lead to the reactivation of citrus exports to the United States, which is a very interesting market. We welcome this new stage with the hope that we'll regain the commercial dynamism we had in the past with the North American market."
“The US market values the quality of our citrus fruits, and it's very good for our lemons. We hope that this new presidency will allow us to recover the excellent commercial relations that we've always had with the United States," he added.
According to data from the US International Trade Commission (USITC) - the US agency that is responsible for collecting US import data–, in the 2010/2011 season Spain exported 60,783 tons of clementines and mandarins to the United States, while in the 2019/2020 season it only exported 45 tons. Spain stopped exporting clementines to the US market because of the additional 25% ad valorem tariff that the US Government imposed on this product just before the start of the 2019/2020 export season.
According to the same sources, the value of Spanish lemon exports to the United States, which amounted to 6,606,436 million dollars in the 2018/2019 season, plummeted to only 1,121,806 million dollars (-83%) in the 2019/2020 campaign.