US to Impose a 21 Percent Duty on Mexican Tomatoes Priced to Undercut Domestic Growers

The administration is investigating several countries that are dumping low-priced goods in U.S. markets.

A seller organizes tomatoes at a street market in Mexico City on Dec. 2, 2024. Raquel Cunha/Reuters

The Department of Commerce intends to withdraw from an agreement with Mexico on tomato imports, a move that will let the Trump administration impose 21 percent duties on the product.

The 2019 Agreement Suspending the Antidumping Investigation on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico will be terminated in 90 days as it has “failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced Mexican imports,” said an April 14 statement from the department.

On Sept. 19, 2019, the Commerce Department during President Donald Trump’s first term enforced the agreement based on a commitment from Mexican producers and exporters that tomatoes would not be sold below an established reference price, thus preventing the undercutting of domestic producers.

However, according to the latest announcement, there has been a flood of complaints that compelled the Commerce Department to terminate the agreement.

Hence, the department “will institute an antidumping duty order on July 14, 2025, resulting in duties of 20.91 percent on most imports of tomatoes from Mexico,” allowing U.S. tomato growers to compete fairly in the marketplace.

The 2019 agreement was finalized after Mexico allowed the Commerce Department to audit up to 80 tomato producers and U.S. sellers per quarter, in addition to closing certain loopholes that allowed for selling tomatoes below the reference prices. It also allowed for “an inspection mechanism to prevent the importation of low-quality, poor-condition tomatoes from Mexico” that had price-suppressive impacts in the U.S. market.

Based on Department of Agriculture data, in 2024, the United States imported around 2.35 million tons of tomatoes. This includes cherry, grape, plum, and round types. The total value of these imports came to approximately $3.63 billion.

The majority of imports by volume, over 80 percent for cherry and round, and over 90 percent for plum and grape, were from Mexico. Canada was in a distant second.

According to a report last year from industry publication California Fruit and Vegetable, over half of Mexico’s tomato production is exported to the United States. Hence, the tariffs are expected to have a significant impact on the country’s exporters.

The Commerce Department, in its latest announcement, said that the Trump administration intends to enforce U.S. trade laws strictly, and currently maintains 734 antidumping and countervailing duty orders.

In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, a domestic petitioner in the antidumping case against Mexican tomatoes, the Florida Tomato Exchange, said it “applauded” the termination of the agreement with Mexico.

“This is a major victory for American agriculture,” said Robert Guenther, executive vice president of the exchange.

“For decades, American tomato farmers have suffered from unfair trade practices by Mexican tomato exporters. Terminating this agreement and enforcing U.S. trade laws is the only way to finally give domestic growers the relief they’ve long deserved. We thank the Administration for standing strong in support of American farmers and the rule of law against unfair foreign trade practices.”

The exchange said that several suspension agreements have been made with Mexico since 1996. However, Mexican tomato companies continued to dump products in the U.S. market, “undercutting American growers and circumventing enforcement mechanisms.”

Since the first agreement in 1996, Mexican tomato imports have climbed nearly 400 percent, while the domestic production share in the U.S. market has fallen from 80 to 30 percent.

Dumping Products

According to the International Trade Administration, part of the Commerce Department, many countries have been dumping products in the United States.

As for Mexico, goods subject to antidumping and countervailing duty rulings include metal products, rubber, steel concrete reinforcing bars, copper pipes, carbon bricks, and tomatoes.

The United States has commenced antidumping investigations of several imported products in April 2025 alone.

On April 10, 2024, the Commerce Department began investigating the alleged dumping of fiberglass door panels from China. The dumping margins of Chinese-made fiberglass door panels came to between 147 and 191 percent, according to the department.

Dumping margins reflect how much lower the export price of a product is compared to its fair market value in its home country. The Commerce Department often calculates these margins using the export price as the baseline. So a dumping margin of 190 percent means the product was sold in the United States at a price less than half its estimated normal value. These dumping margins typically correspond to the anti-dumping duties (i.e., tariffs) that may be imposed later if an investigation confirms this underpricing hurts U.S. producers.

Two days earlier, on April 8, the department initiated investigations into polypropylene corrugated boxes imported from China and Vietnam. The margins for this product were between 74 percent and 84 percent for those coming from China, and 52 percent for those coming from Vietnam.

On April 4, a multi-country investigation was commenced, featuring construction materials from Australia with a dumping margin of 17 percent; steel from Brazil at 138 percent; steel from Canada up to 52 percent; and steel from Mexico with around a 14 percent margin.

There was also alleged steel dumping coming in from the Netherlands, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, the UAE, and Vietnam, which the department is investigating.

In its latest statement, the department said that antidumping duty orders and relevant investigations are aimed at providing relief to American businesses and workers from foreign companies that unfairly undercut prices.

Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.