Last week, members of the Florida congressional delegation called on U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to end the 2019 Tomato Suspension Agreement with Mexico. Senator Marco Rubio and U.S. Representative Jim Costa led a letter to Raimondo on the matter.
“Mexican tomato exporters are conducting unfair trade practices and dumping tomatoes into the U.S. market, despite the 2019 Tomato Suspension Agreement. This is forcing American tomato farmers out of business and destroying the domestic tomato industry,” Rubio’s office noted.
“We write to request the immediate termination of the 2019 Suspension Agreement on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico (“Suspension Agreement”) and to urge you to impose antidumping duties on imports of unfairly traded Mexican tomatoes as required by law,” the letter read.
“Despite the good faith efforts of the U.S. Department of Commerce to enforce the 2019 Suspension Agreement, Mexican tomato exporters are using the Suspension Agreement as a cover to conduct unfair trade practices, which are destroying the domestic tomato industry. The Commerce Department has already documented over a hundred violations of the 2019 Suspension Agreement, including continued dumping. The Suspension Agreement is not working and cannot be modified to work under existing law, so antidumping duties must be imposed to sufficiently remedy ongoing injury to the domestic tomato industry.”
Source: floridadaily.com