July is the era of harvesting in northern Greece peaches, where collectors climb on wooden stairs and carefully place the fruit in boxes ready for factories that peel them, slices and canned, often for consumers.

However, this year, there is concern following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of 30% duties on European products, which affect other industries, from wine to olive oil and cars, according to Reuters.

Peach cultivators and factory owners are worried that duties will reduce demand for their products, just as they are preparing to send their fresh crop abroad, so they either have to be adapted in a short time or find alternative markets.

Greece is the largest exporter of canned peaches in the world, about one -fifth of which goes to the United States, its second largest market after Europe.

Peaches, like some other products, are already subject to an introductory duty of 17% from the US. The new duties could increase the total import duty to 47%.

“Now it’s even worse because it finds us in ” climax ”, where the whole factory and all production lines work at a fast pace”, said Lazaros Ioannides, co -owner of a peach and fruit processing plant near Naoussa, which sends about 40% of its production to large US companies such as Dole.

The fertile plain of Central Macedonia in Greece is a huge peach of peaches.

This week, trucks unloaded boxes full of thousands of yellow peaches at the Ioannidis plant, where they were loaded into metaphorical straps for treatment.

Greece’s annual turnover from the exports of canned peaches and other packed peach products amounts to more than 600m euros, with about 120m euros coming from the US market, according to Reuters.

Exports to the United States account for about 4% of Greece’s total exports. The canned peaches and their derivatives, olives and olive oil are the top three agricultural products exported to the US, bringing about half a billion euros a year.

More than 20,000 families, farmers and workers earn their income from farms and peach factories in Central Macedonia, according to Kostas Apostolou, head of the Hellenic Canning Association.

“Our size can be small as a percentage for the country or the EU, but for the region it is a great source of income, vital to its survival.”

“In the last 6 months, since Trump has taken over his duties, we have been in a period of total disruption.”says Apostolou.

He said the only alternative is to differentiate exports to Mercosur (southern common market) in South America or Mexico and India and urged the EU to sign a trade agreement with these countries.

The EU was planning to approve a trade agreement with Mercosur, but faced the opposition of some countries.

However, there are also optimists.

“Trump is unpredictable. We hope that he will prove this and change that decision. “said farmer Vangelis Karaindros as he and his employees were collecting ripe peaches.