Catalan exports exceeded 100,000 million euros last year and act as a propeller for the economy, but the engine can rise for the tariff tightening of the Trump administration. The commercial war declared by the American president against everyone means raising the average tariffs to imports of the first world power over 20%, a scare for ascending commercial dynamics that Catalan companies have been maintaining with the United States. An Acció report, the public agency for the competitiveness of the company, highlights that Trump’s measures break into a time when, “especially in the United States.” Last year the commercial flow of Catalonia with North America registered a growth of 17.5%.
He announced Thursday that he will summon the social and economic agents to a meeting on the next day 7 to “articulate an answer” to the tariffs announced by Donald Trump. “We have to defend Europe over ideologies,” said Illa. Sources from the Generalitat explained that the meeting will take place on Monday at 10:00 a.m. The members of the Social Dialogue Council are summoned to the meeting: the CCOO and UGT and the PIIMEC employers’ unions.
The action report on exports reviews that the total volume of Catalan shipments to the United States had a value of 4,350 million euros last year. That market does not represent more than 4.3% of the total volume of exports, but Acció states that the country that is now in Trump is a fertile territory to place the Catalan expeditions. “The United States has become in 2024 the sixth commercial partner of Catalonia and the first market for Catalan exports outside Europe,” says the commercial report.
In response to the interannual variation, there is no market that in 2024 will show for Catalan companies such a remarkable growth, 17.5%, such as that of North America. Catalan exports to Africa grew 9.1%, asia already 3.7%and South America 2.5%. In the case of sales to the rest of the countries of the European Union, a business shrink of 2.3%was recorded.
More than 3,100 Catalan companies export regularly to the United States, so they can be directly exposed to. The growth of Catalan exports in that market is based on perfume articles and pharmaceutical products, the Acció Report describes. The same analysis highlights that Catalonia leads exports in Spain, with a share of 26% on the total. Madrid, the second community in export ranking, has a weight of 12.7% and Andalusia of 10.4%.
The Minister of Agriculture, Òscar Ordeig, emphasizes that the exporting companies of Catalonia may adapt to the tariff impact because they have diversified the markets, especially in the case of the agri -food sector. “We are going to get out of this,” Ordeig predicted.
The Catalan employer Foment of Treball claims that the European Union (EU) adopts a “solid and determined” reaction strategy to US tariffs, but based at the same time on “dialogue and negotiation”. The entity defends to avoid a “escalation of protectionist measures”, and the president of the entity, warned that “a commercial war is bad for everyone.” The employer Pimec has defended the need to give a “firm but pragmatic” response that avoids an “open commercial war.” “It is not a time for submission or for unnecessary climbing, but to activate a European -scale cohesive action, focused on avoiding a commercial war and protecting the most affected sectors,” said the.
The president of the Chamber of Barcelona, Josep Santacreu, has called to prepare “an adequate response as a whole of Europe” to Trump’s tariffs. He regretted that “in the long run it will be bad for everyone and, surely, for whom it will be, it will be for the United States.”
He counselor From the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, defended yesterday the need to present a coordinated response with the Central Government and the European Union (EU) to deal with tariffs imposed by the United States. “It’s time to be all together with the EU and Spain to deal with this situation, without internal confrontations,” said Dalmau. The situation is “worrying” for Catalonia, precisely at a time when “a good economic moment, leading growth in Spain and the European Union”, so “the tariffs are not good,” Dalmau added. “Catalan citizens must keep in mind that any new tariff is a setback, a new border and introduces more division and instability,” the reasoned the counselor.
For his part, the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, warned that the decisions of the president of the United States will pass “bill, and will not be cheap.” “The era of globalization ends as we have understood until now and a new one begins, of uncertain development,” he said in a note on social networks. According to Puigdemont, Trump strives to demonstrate certainty in his policy, claiming that he is doing what he said he would carry out, but that “the effect it causes is a global uncertainty of colossal dimensions.”
