The president of Greek Exporters’ Association (SEVE), Simos Diamantidis, expressed cautious optimism about the outcome of Trump’s tariffs on Greek products, following his very recent trip to the US on this issue and the contacts he had with leading figures of the Greek diaspora and lobbying in Washington, Philadelphia and New York.
In the context of this trip, the president of SEVE met with Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, Greek diaspora billionaire John Catsimatidis, the entrepreneur and advisor to President Trump Christos Marafatsos, the president of Hermes Expo and publisher of “Hellenic News of America” Pavlos Kotrotsios, and others.
“It was a trip that had to be made to brief the Greek diaspora that has influence on President Trump on many issues,” Diamantidis pointed out to “N”.
“We informed them about some things they did not know about Greek bilateral trade with the US, with data and analyses from the Export and Research Institute of SEVE. We continue to communicate and send them data on European exports-imports with the US and Greek exports/imports.
What we observe is that there are countries with very large surpluses in their exports to the US, such as Germany with a surplus of 80 billion, Italy with a surplus of 42 billion and Ireland, while Greece and other countries have small surpluses, specifically our country has a surplus of 200 million euros and we believe that if we buy a little more LNG we will equal it.
On the other hand, we are interested in the American market, it is a large country with 350 million consumers, products are sold expensively there, there is room for Greek products but we have to see where the negotiation will end up.”
These opportunities, according to the president of SEVE, mainly concern the food and beverage sector, especially Mediterranean food items, as well as aluminum and cement.
“The effort continues,” Diamantidis concluded and expressed cautious optimism about the outcome.
