American tomato farmers and the Florida Tomato Exchange applauded yesterday's announcement by the U.S. Department of Commerce to terminate the 2019 U.S.-Mexico Tomato Suspension Agreement, effective July 14, 2025.
"This is a major victory for American agriculture," said Robert Guenther, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange. "For decades, American tomato farmers have suffered from unfair trade practices by Mexican tomato exporters. Terminating this agreement and enforcing U.S. trade laws is the only way to finally give domestic growers the relief they've long deserved."
The Department's decision comes in response to a 2023 petition from the U.S. tomato industry, which was backed by more than 60 bipartisan Members of Congress from 11 states, the American Farm Bureau Federation, state Farm Bureaus from all nine major tomato-producing states, and 15 fruit and vegetable trade associations across the country.
© Florida Tomato Committee
Despite five suspension agreements since 1996, Mexican tomato companies have continued to dump product into the U.S. market—undercutting American growers and circumventing enforcement mechanisms. Since the first agreement, Mexican tomato imports have surged nearly 400 percent, capturing over 70 percent of the U.S. market. During that same period, the U.S. industry's market share dropped from 80 percent to 30 percent.
In 2019, the U.S. Department of Commerce found Mexican tomatoes were being dumped in the United States at high margins, and the U.S. International Trade Commission unanimously confirmed the material injurious effect of that dumping on the American tomato industry.
"The tomato suspension agreement failed American farmers," said Guenther. "It has been impossible to enforce and easy to evade. Today's action finally ends the cycle of harm that has decimated the American tomato industry over nearly three decades."
Following the termination of the Suspension Agreement, which will take effect July 14, 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will begin requiring antidumping cash deposits on entries of Mexican tomatoes as of that date. No additional investigative steps are required, as the underlying antidumping case was completed in 2019.
Click here for more details on the announcement.
For more information:
Robert Guenther
Florida Tomato Exchange
Tel: +1 (443) 864-0214
rguenther@floridatomatoexchange.com
https://www.floridatomatoes.org/