The Vice President and Minister of Economy of the Government of the Canary Islands, Manuel Domínguez, has warned that the economy of the islands "will be affected" by the tariffs decreed by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, on European products, especially wine and cheese.
Ana de León, manager of the Lanzarote winery Bermejos, which exports 20% of its production to the United States, spoke about the matter last week in an interview with Ekonomus and explained how they suffered and dealt with Trump's tariffs in his first term.
According to data from the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics (Istac), in 2024, the Canary Islands exported products and goods to the United States worth 33.61 million euros, three million less than in 2023.
The United States is not one of the main destinations for exports from the islands. The first buyer of Canary products is peninsular Spain and the Balearic Islands, with 966.85 million euros in 2024; the second, Senegal, with 94.98 million; the third, Mauritania, with 79.31 million; the fourth, France, with 66.13 million; and the fifth, the United Kingdom, with 49.41 million.
According to tariff items, the most prominent products in Canary Islands exports to the United States in 2024 were 8.06 million euros in boilers, machines and mechanical devices; 6.20 million in gums, resins and other vegetable extracts; 5.19 million in sugars and derivatives; 4.77 million in fish and crustaceans; 3.91 million in essential oils and perfumery preparations; 2.53 million in aircraft and components for the aerospace industry; 2.32 million in milk and dairy products, and 1.18 million in alcoholic beverages.
The vice president has detailed that the primary sector will be the most affected, especially products such as wine and cheese production that "at this time had found an opportune market niche in the United States that was growing", and with an "increasing demand".
As he explained, the archipelago's economy "substantially depends on imports and will have a direct impact on the products that we are going to continue importing from the Canary Islands", so he has stated that he will be "very attentive" to everything that Trump's pronouncement will entail and also "to the measures that the Government of Spain may implement".
Domínguez has considered that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, "should call all the regional presidents for a joint decision", since the impact that it may have on one autonomous community or another "is not the same", and the policies that are carried out "should not be linear", but rather follow "with greater accuracy and greater precision" the reality of each region.
He has confessed that what "worries" him the most is that the prices of the products that are imported into the Canary Islands will increase, since policies to contain inflation and policies to improve the prices of the shopping basket were being carried out, but "an increase in the prices of imported products can directly affect".
In this sense, he has stated that he is "going to study" what the "real impact" is from the United States and "trusts" that "the central government will listen to us".
For Domínguez, "joint measures must be taken based on all the data", although he has assured that "what is clear is that we are not going to leave the sectors alone at this time and we will help them make pertinent decisions, we will listen to them and, based on that, we will take measures".
