The U.S. Would Need To Plant Up to 250,000 More Acres of Tomatoes To Replace Those Imported from Mexico
The Commerce Department’s 17.09 percent duties on most imports of tomatoes from Mexico went into effect on Monday. While the duties are intended to protect American tomato growers at the expense of Mexican ones, it is American consumers and tomato processors who will bear the burden.
The International Trade Administration (ITA), an agency within the Commerce Department, announced on April 14 its withdrawal from the September 2019 Agreement Suspending the Antidumping Investigation on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico. The ITA began its antidumping investigation in April 1996 and determined in October of that year that fresh tomatoes imported from Mexico were being sold at “less than fair value” in the United States.
The ITA subjects foreign companies to antidumping duties when they “price their products in the U.S. market below the cost of production or below prices in their home markets,” according to the agency. Antidumping duties are additional tariffs “placed on the imported merchandise to offset the difference between the price…in the foreign market and the price in the U.S. market,” explains the Congressional Research Service.
To avoid these antidumping duties, Mexican exporters signed an agreement with the Commerce Department to sell fresh tomatoes at or above the established reference price of 21 cents per pound on November 1, 1996. The Tomato Suspension Agreement (TSA) was renewed in 2002, 2008, 2013, and 2019. Although the most recently established reference price is 50 percent greater (31 cents per pound for round and Roma tomatoes) than the one set in 1996, the ITA stated that the updated agreement “failed to protect U.S. tomat
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