The Trump administration will withdraw from an agreement that allows tomatoes to enter the U.S. market duty-free, the Commerce Department said on Monday, noting imports will soon face new tariffs.

“The current agreement has failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced Mexican imports,” a statement from the International Trade Administration reads. Accordingly, the statement says, “Commerce has been flooded with comments” from domestic producers calling for its termination.

During President Donald Trump’s first term, his administration negotiated the latest deal with Mexican tomato growers, known as the tomato suspension agreement. Under the terms of the deal, they agreed to sell tomatoes above an agreed reference price so as not to undercut U.S. producers. In exchange, the U.S. did not apply antidumping duties to the imports.

But groups like the Florida Tomato Exchange have argued that the deal has not stopped the Mexican producers from selling the fruits below fair market prices.

The termination of the agreement will occur in 90 days, the ITA said. Starting July 14, antidumping duties of 20.91% will be restored on most imported tomatoes from Mexico.

“This action will allow U.S. tomato growers to compete fairly in the marketplace,” ITA’s statement says.

As evidence of the agreement’s shortcomings, tomato growers have pointed to their declining share of the U.S. market. In 1994, the year the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, U.S. producers supplied 80% of the country’s tomatoes, the Florida Tomato Exchange said in a 2023 petition to end the agreement. By 2023, this had fallen to around 30%, with Mexico supplying the other roughly 70%.

Part of the problem is that the agreement contains no mechanism forcing producers to sell above the floor price, such as a tariff or an import quota, according to analysis from the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a trade group representing domestic producers across agriculture, manufacturing and other U.S. industries.

“This is excellent news for the domestic tomato industry,” Nick Iacovella, the executive vice president of CPA said in a post to X on Monday. “This agreement has been disastrous for U.S. tomato producers,” Iacovella added.

The Florida Tomato Exchange also welcomed Monday's announcement. 

"This is a major victory for American agriculture,” said Executive Vice President Robert Guenther in a statement. 

“The tomato suspension agreement failed American farmers,” Guenther added. “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.”

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The agreement has also been a target of multiple Florida lawmakers. GOP Sen. Rick Scott wrote to the Commerce Department under President Joe Biden lamenting “unfairly traded Mexican tomatoes” and calling for the reimposition of anti-dumping duties.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also called for the deal’s suspension when he was a Florida senator, as have dozens of other members of Congress. During his confirmation hearing, Rubio told lawmakers that he believed agricultural trade was one of the biggest friction points in the U.S. relationship.

Florida GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan was among the first to welcome Commerce’s decision to pull out of the deal on Monday.

“Terminating the 2019 Tomato Suspension Agreement is a long-overdue victory for Florida’s tomato growers and the broader U.S. produce industry,” Buchanan said in a statement. “For too long, unfair Mexican trade practices and illegal dumping have decimated American farms and tilted the playing field against our hardworking growers.”

Buchanan had also written a pair of letters to Biden's commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, and introduced legislation to counter seasonal dumping and Mexican trade practices.

“This decision finally opens the door to strong, enforceable trade remedies that will protect American jobs, strengthen our rural economy and ensure our farmers can compete and thrive,” Buchanan said.

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