On Sept. 19, Commerce finalized an agreement with Mexican tomato growers to suspend the AD investigation of fresh tomatoes from Mexico, halting the process for imposing antidumping duties on tomatoes from Mexico. 

“Today’s successful outcome validates the administration’s strong and smart approach to negotiating trade deals,” Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said.  “The department’s action brought the Mexican growers to the negotiating table and led to a result that protects U.S. tomato producers from unfair trade. It also removes major uncertainties for the Mexican growers and their workers.”

The suspension agreement completely eliminates the injurious effects of unfairly priced Mexican tomatoes, prevents price suppression and undercutting, and eliminates substantially all dumping, while allowing Commerce to audit up to 80 Mexican tomato producers and U.S. sellers per quarter, or more with good cause. 

In addition, the agreement also closes loopholes from past suspension agreements that permitted sales below the reference prices in certain circumstances, and includes an inspection mechanism to prevent the importation of low-quality, poor-condition tomatoes from Mexico, which can have price-suppressive effects on the market. 

The probe came from a Nov. 14, 2018, request from the Florida Tomato Exchange.