U.S. agriculture producers and those who value American-produced food need to pay attention to the California olive industry’s trade case against Spanish ripe olives. It is an important case with broad policy implications on Europe’s protectionist farm policies, effective U.S. trade enforcement tools, and the American-produced food supply chain.

The case originally arose from an all-too-common problem facing American farmers and businesses. Several years ago, California family olive farmers and processing interests began losing their U.S. market to dumped and heavily subsidized olive imports from Spain. For sheer survival reasons, they filed an import relief case and prevailed. The U.S. government imposed offsetting U.S. tariffs on Spanish olives and has since repeatedly confirmed the need for these tariffs.

The offsetting tariffs have given the California industry hope. The industry is now competitive in the U.S. market and has been able to transition to modern, mechanized, drought-tolerant acreage and other modern farm techniques to help it become all the more so. The partnership this case generated (strong U.S. trade enforcement on the one hand and industry self-help initiatives on the other) has proven to be an effective, if not essential, model for safeguarding U.S. economic interests.

The case has shone an important light, too, on unfair EU farm policies. For decades, Europe has been thwarting U.S. efforts to challenge its unfair farm subsidy schemes and other protectionist agricultural policies. Its years of evasion have enabled the European Union to build a staggering $24 billion farm trade surplus with the United States. When the olive case was filed, it became a test case, the first of its kind to challenge the subsidy elements of these unfair EU practices.

The U.S. government rose to the occasion, carefully documenting the unfairness in the EU’s farm subsidies and levying equivalent tariffs so U.S. producers could compete. Even as European officials continue to push the U.S. government at all levels to end the case in the so-called interest of “re-setting” U.S.-EU relations, the U.S. has held its ground. If American farmers are ever to achieve more balanced U.S.-EU trade in agriculture, our officials should follow the example set in the olive case and stand firm against the long and varied list of protectionist measures the EU deploys to sustain its vast farm trade surplus with the U.S.

The olive case serves American agriculture in another vital respect. To try to stop the olive case, Europe has challenged the olive tariffs in the World Trade Organization. While the WTO ruling provided a legal pathway for continuing the olive tariffs, it took issue with a U.S. trade statute that has been on the books for three decades to ensure that U.S. trade laws effectively address foreign agricultural subsidies. The U.S. has since shown how that law fully conforms with WTO rules and is continuing to use it to combat EU subsidies. American farmers can compete with anyone anywhere, but they will lose ground unless, as in olives, trade tools critical to defending American agriculture are upheld and preserved.

Of final note, the olive case has prepared the U.S. to take a stand in defense of a durable, American-produced food supply. The Spanish olive industry has not been shy about its ambition to eliminate California-grown olives to make the U.S. market entirely dependent on foreign imports. To a growing extent, other foreign suppliers, using similar tactics, are trying to knock out America’s food production in a range of sectors with unfair trade practices. The olive case helps send a message to those foreign suppliers that they should expect strong enforcement steps to be taken to safeguard America’s food supply and food security interests.

Doing trade right means standing up to forces that harm our family farmers, erode our trade enforcement tools, and threaten to decimate our American-produced food supply. On these and other fronts, continuing strong enforcement in the California olive case shows how this can be accomplished.

Doug LaMalfa is a U.S. representative for California and a fourth-generation rice farmer and businessman. He serves as the ranking member on the Conservation and Forestry Subcommittee.