Trump Administration Takes Action to Put American Tomato Growers First
Unfair Mexican Trade Practices “Hurt Florida’s Tomato Industry”
WASHINGTON — Friday, Congressman Vern Buchanan, Vice Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and member of the Trade Subcommittee, and Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) led a letter alongside 17 colleagues to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick commending the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the 2019 U.S.-Mexico Tomato Suspension Agreement.
The Commerce Department announced that the agreement did not protect against unfair trade practices, stating: “The current agreement has failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced tomatoes.” Under the Biden Administration, Buchanan signed two letters to former U.S. Secretary Gina Raimondo urging the Department of Commerce to terminate the 2019 Tomato Suspension Agreement and defend the American tomato industry.
“I want to thank Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick for his leadership and for putting American farmers first. For far too long, the Biden Administration allowed unfair Mexican trade practices to hurt Florida’s tomato industry, putting Florida farmers at a severe disadvantage,” said Buchanan. “I recently met with the Florida Tomato Exchange to discuss the hardships their farmers have had to endure. The long-awaited termination of the Tomato Suspension Agreement will finally allow our farmers to compete on a level playing field.”
“The Trump administration’s move to end the Tomato Suspension Agreement is a major victory for American growers and producers after years of the Biden administration ignoring my calls to do so. I’m grateful to President Trump and Commerce Secretary Lutnick for taking swift action to correct course by terminating this agreement, and I look forward to this termination proceeding without delay for our growers and producers. I am proud to work with my colleagues and the Trump administration to continue standing up for American growers and put their best interests first,” said Senator Rick Scott.
Since 1996, each suspension agreement has allowed tomato imports from Mexico to harm American farmers. As a result, the market share for domestic growers dropped from nearly 80 percent in 1994 to around only 30 percent today.
In the letter, lawmakers urge the Department of Commerce to ensure the scheduled termination of the agreement goes through as planned, writing “Your recent decision to terminate the agreement was long-awaited and welcomed news, and we ask that you maintain the planned timeline its termination July 14, 2025. American produces and growers have been harmed for years, and we cannot delay termination of this agreement any longer.”
Joining Buchanan and Scott in co-signing the letter are Senator Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) and Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.), Randy Fine (R-Fla.), Scott Franklin (R-Fla.), Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.), Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), Mike Haridopolos (R-Fla.), Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.), Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), Neal Dunn (R-Fla.), Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), John Rutherford (R-Fla.), Gregory Steube (R-Fla.) and Daniel Webster (R-Fla.).
This letter is endorsed by the Florida Tomato Exchange and the Florida Farm Bureau.
Buchanan has championed policies that support Florida’s fruit and vegetable industries and is a long-standing advocate for fair trade. He previously introduced the Defending Domestic Produce Protection Act to help Florida fruit and vegetable growers combat illegal seasonal dumping and Mexico’s unfair trade practices.
Read the full letter here or below.
Dear Secretary Lutnick:
On behalf of ourselves and our constituents, we would like to thank you for your work and applaud the Trump administration’s April 14, 2025, decision to terminate the suspension agreement on fresh tomatoes from Mexico and replace it with an antidumping duty order as required by the U.S. antidumping law. Antidumping duties are essential to stopping foreign countries and their companies from injuring American farmers, companies, and workers with unfair trade practices as we have seen with Mexican tomatoes.
As the Commerce Department stated clearly in its announcement: “The current agreement has failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced tomatoes.” The termination of the suspension agreement will allow U.S. tomato growers to compete fairly in the marketplace. As you know, under the current (2019) suspension agreement and each of the four prior agreements in 1996, 2002, 2008, and 2013, imports of fresh tomatoes from Mexico decimated American farmers. The domestic industry’s market share fell from about 80 percent in 1994 to about 30 percent today, whereas Mexico’s share of our American fresh tomato market rose from about 20 percent to 70 percent in that same period.
In 2019, the Commerce Department earnestly negotiated major changes to the prior suspension agreements in a good faith effort to ensure that Mexican tomato growers and exporters would stop dumping tomatoes in the United States. The resulting 2019 Agreement, like its predecessors, failed because Mexican tomato growers and exporters were able to continue to sell injurious, unfairly priced Mexican tomato in the United States despite the new agreement.
That is why many of us wrote your predecessor in 2023 to support the termination requested by the domestic tomato industry. The American tomato industry secured the legal right to an antidumping duty order on fresh tomatoes from Mexico in 2019, when, at the domestic industry’s request, Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) continued their final investigations of dumping and injury to completion. The agencies reached affirmative determinations, with Commerce finding Mexican imports were dumped at low prices in the U.S. market and the ITC concluding unanimously that these unfairly traded imports would materially injure the domestic industry absent trade relief. On April 17 of this year, the U.S. Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department’s dumping determination.
Upon Commerce’s completion of this termination agreement on July 14, 2025, Mexican producers will experience the consequences of their failure to comply with U.S. law, the imposition of antidumping duties consistent with U.S. law, the WTO Agreement, and United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Mexico agreed to abide by these antidumping duty laws, and the United States needs to strongly enforce them to protect its American tomato producers so they can again compete in a fair U.S. market.
Your recent decision to terminate the agreement was long-awaited and welcomed news, and we ask that you maintain the planned timeline its termination July 14, 2025. American produces and growers have been harmed for years, and we cannot delay termination of this agreement any longer.
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