Although technically they are a fruit, tomatoes are one of the most consumed vegetables, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Among the fresh products that the country buys from foreign countries, tomatoes usually occupy the first or second place, after avocados.
This trade is now in danger because the Trump administration resumed an effort of three decades to limit imports.
Cresh tomato imports guarantee availability throughout the year for consumers, contribute significantly to the US economy by generating billions in sales and supporting thousands of jobs, and promoting competitive prices that benefit both consumers and companies.
New import restrictions could put all this at risk, since national production cannot meet national demand. In the case of tomatoes, as in the case of steel and other products, efforts to reverse commercial imbalances can reduce consumer satisfaction and potentially destroy more jobs and economic activity than they create.
This dispute over tomatoes began in the 1990s.
At that time, the unprecedented growth of import imports from Mexico prompted US producers to ask the Clinton administration to investigate whether they were being sold at unjustly low prices. If so, both the norms of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and American commercial policy would be violated.
The United States responded with an anti -dumping investigation, carried out by the Department of Commerce and the United States International Trade Commission. The agencies were responsible for determining if imports were being sold in the United States at a price lower than the fair market value, that is, the definition of Dumping.
Dumping can harm national producers by depressing local prices to compete with imports, which causes financial difficulties. An anti -dumping right is essentially a tariff.
The Commerce Department failed against Mexican producers, determining that they had incurred Dumping, but reached an agreement with them. Mexican tomato exporters agreed to establish minimal prices, which led the United States to suspend the investigation. The United States and Mexico subsequently signed a series of suspension agreements over the years.
The first was implemented in 1996 and the most recent entered into force in 2019, during the previous mandate of President Donald Trump, after his administration threatened to impose a 17.5% tariff on tomato.
Cancellation of the Tomato Suspension Agreement
However, in April 2025, the Department of Commerce announced that it would be withdrawn from the last Tomato Suspension Agreement. The Trump administration plans to begin imposing, as of July, 21% anti -dumping tariffs on fresh tomatoes imported from Mexico.
At this time, it is not clear if American importers and consumers will assume the full charge of this tariff, or if Mexican tomato exporters will absorb this cost.
This measure is supposed to benefit fresh tomato producers in the United States, most of which are in Florida, and a significantly lower number in California. However, tariffs could harm distributors, wholesalers and retailers of agricultural products, as well as US consumers.
In the United States, Americans got used to buying fresh tomatoes to add them to their salads and sandwiches throughout the year, although in most of the country you can only harvest tomatoes grown in the field during the warmest months.
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This dispute does not affect all the tomatoes and derived products consumed by Americans.
American tomato production is divided into two main categories. Fresh tomatoes are usually bought in the supermarket products section to consume whole, chopped or sliced. This dispute focuses on those tomatoes.
The other type of tomato is the tomatoes to process, which companies use to make tomato paste, canned tomatoes or stews and tomato sauce. California leads the national tomato production to process. Unlike fresh tomatoes, where the United States matters much more than it produces or exports, the United States maintains a commercial surplus in processed tomato products.
When the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented in January 1994, American fresh tomato production quadrupled the amount of imported fresh tomatoes: 1.7 million metric tons produced in front of only 400,000 imported metric tons.
National production constantly decreased since then, while imports increased. Imported fresh tomatoes are now twice as much: in 2023 1 million metric tons were grown in the US, compared to the 2 million imported metric tons.
This happened while the Americans consumed more fresh tomatoes than ever: almost 9 kilograms (20 pounds) per capita in 2023.
Tariffs will affect tomato prices for the consumer
In 2024, fresh tomato imports amounted to 3.6 billion US dollars, of which 3,100 million came from Mexico. This represented an increase of 367% from the entry into force of the TMEC, adjusted to inflation.
Since production costs are lower in Mexico for many products, especially in the fresh products sector, where labor costs are less than half than in the United States, you might think that this agreement would maintain low fresh tomato prices in the United States. However, there is little evidence to support it. Instead, the opposite seems to happen.
In 1995, the price that American importers paid for Mexican tomatoes was 31 cents per pound. Since then, import prices increased constantly to 74 cents per pound in 2024. Frequently, they exceeded the prices paid to US farmers and have remained at the pace of the general increase in food prices in the last three decades.
While restricting the importation of Mexican tomatoes, it could benefit American tomato producers by facilitating their prices, there are other factors to consider. Imports play a crucial role in promoting economic activity and job creation. According to a recent study, these imports generated a total economic impact of more than 8,000 million dollars.
The additional 5,000 million dollars come from all added value activities associated with the transport of that product from the border to consumers. This total economic impact supports approximately 47,000 jobs in the United States related to storage, distribution, wholesale and retail of tomatoes.
The anti -dumping tariffs on imported fresh tomatoes can increase prices and reduce the amount of fresh tomatoes that Americans can buy. This would also reduce part of the economic impact and eliminate some of the jobs driven by the rise of imported tomato.
*Andrew Muhammad He is a professor of agriculture and economy of resource at the University of Tennessee; Luis Ribera He is director of the North American Studies Center at the Texas A&M University.
This article was originally published in The Conversation
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