In our country there is an image deeply rooted in its collective imagination about the role of the Spanish economy on the international stage. It is very common to come across the idea of a Spain that acts as the great pantry of Europelike your garden, like your agricultural section. A country that, thanks to its privileged climate and enviable agricultural technology, floods the continent’s markets with fruits, vegetables, oil and wine. But it is evident that this narrative, which places the agricultural and livestock sector at the epicenter of our external projection and therefore often at the center of the debate on the role of foreign trade in our economy, it is not fundamentally false, but it is eminently exaggerated.
Foreign trade data force us to review this perception. When we look at the figures, we discover that what really sustains the Spanish export muscle is not the orchard, but the factory, the high-precision laboratory, the engineering offices and pharmaceutical companiesamong others. Also, without a doubt, the hotels, the beaches and the hospitality industry. But the variety of our exports is such that there is no group of products that dominates the rest, except, of course, industrial goods if we consider them as a whole. Therefore, the gap between what we believe we sell and what we actually clear through our customs is, simply, abysmal.
If we analyze the total volume of exports of goodsreality is stubborn. By 2025, compared to the 77 billion euros contributed by the agricultural and livestock sector – a figure that has continued to grow despite the difficulties – we find an industry that exports a volume four times greater: about 310 billion euros. To these amounts we must add exports of services which, although they do not usually appear in goods statistics, would add another 140,000 million. In other words: for every euro that Spain earns by selling farm products, it generates more than five by selling machinery, automobiles, chemicals, pharmacies or sophisticated technological services.
Of course, there is no intention in these lines to disparage the field. On the contrary, the Spanish agricultural and livestock sector is a prodigy of efficiency that has known how to modernize and compete in an extremely tough global environment, although many infantilize the sector believing that it will not know or be able to compete with other economies. I insist, the agricultural and livestock sector is a sector potentially capable of competing in the markets it proposes, and not the opposite. However, and having said that, its relevance in the whole of Spanish exports is such that establishing our economic identity and our legislative priorities based only on this sector is to ignore the true and silent transformation of recent decades based on the consolidation of an industrial power and high added value (VA) services that competes face to face with the giants of the north.
Furthermore, the reality of our agricultural and livestock sector is that what happens in Europe is much more relevant than the trade agreements with other nations which, once carried out, contribute or add to our commercial surplus, not the other way around. And, paradoxically, the main destination of our agricultural production is not exotic markets, but rather the European Union itself and developed countries with which we maintain solid trade agreements. In an extreme scenario of a trade break with Europe—very unlikely, almost a science fiction scenario, although there are those who hint at it or directly propose it—the agricultural sector would be, precisely, one of the most affected. Its dependence on the European market is total: 52,000 million euros are poured into the common market, compared to just 4,000 million in North America or 1,700 million in China. Our prosperity is, therefore, inextricably linked to the health of advanced economies and the fluidity of exchange with them.
As previously reflected, while trade liberalization is often perceived as a threat—especially during agrarian mobilizations—the data refutes such fear. Free trade is not the executioner of the primary sector; It is the oxygen that allows that 20% of agricultural and livestock exports to find buyers with high purchasing power in latitudes where the climate does not allow local production throughout the year.
If he Free trade favors the countryside, its impact on the industry and services is simply vital. The Spanish prosperity of the last two decades cannot be explained without the elimination of technical barriers. The fact that industrial exports so clearly surpass agricultural exports is empirical proof that Spain “plays at another level.”
Therefore, the argument that trade liberalization “harms” our producers ignores a fundamental technical reality: much of what we successfully export today. incorporates technology, patents and components imported efficiently thanks to those same trade agreements. Closing borders under the short-term premise of protecting the countryside would not only risk our agricultural sales in the face of possible retaliation, but would strangle the remaining 80% of our economy.
It is undeniable that the agricultural and livestock sector has a social, cultural and territorial relevance that transcends macroeconomic figures. The structuring of the territory, the fight against depopulation and food security are strategic values that justify political attention. However, we cannot allow emotional weight to cloud the analysis. Public policies cannot be designed looking in the rearview mirror of a nostalgic economy, but rather forward, towards a globalized and digital economy.
Spain is today a country whose exports They are mainly industrial and services with high intellectual content. We are moving towards a model where applied intelligence outweighs traditional natural resources. This evolution towards added value is what will sustain our well-being and the well-being system in the future.
In conclusion, free trade has been the great catalyst for this unstoppable transformation. Recognizing that we are much more than a garden is not turning our backs on our roots; It is taking the definitive step towards an economic maturity that customs already reflects, but that has not yet fully permeated part of the public discourse. It is time for the national story to finally live up to its productive reality.
