Argentina hopes new US agreement will allow the biodiesel to flow again

In Argentina, Clarin newspaper reports that the framework trade agreement between Argentina and the United States , announced a few weeks ago, opened up a range of expectations in the agribusiness sector that goes beyond beef. One of the sectors that welcomes this agreement is the biodiesel industry , which sees it as an opportunity to reopen a US market that once represented about $1.2 billion per year , but was virtually closed by antidumping and antisubsidy sanctions in 2018, with tariffs that reached 130% and were ratified years later, despite constant complaints from Argentina, which denies that the company engaged in such practices.

In an interview with Clarín Rural, the president of the Argentine Chamber of Biofuels (Carbio), Luis Zubizarreta , expressed that they “hope” that local biodiesel can once again enter the North American market. For Zubizarreta, “ this opens a door and a dialogue on this issue , which I believe is on the list of expectations, because we may not return to the previous scheme where we had an open market, but perhaps we can think about a volume agreement like we have with the European Union,” which today is one million tons per year.

“If we could achieve something similar with the United States, we would be happy ,” summarized the head of the chamber that encompasses the country’s major exporting industries, with anticipation. According to Zubizarreta, the important thing is to have the market open to be able to export , regardless of whether the agreed quota can be met, as happens with the European Union, where one million tons can be exported, but which Argentina was far from achieving.