Over the weekend, a bipartisan group of lawmakers directed a letter to Secretary Gina Raimondo, the U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary. The letter led by Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) was also signed by Rep. Charlie Crist (D) and Senator Rick Scott (R), among others.
In it, Rubio and the lawmakers call for an exemption “to certain greenhouse-grown specialty tomatoes from the 2019 U.S.-Mexico Suspension Agreement on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico.”
The lawmakers further argue that “the dismissal of the Changed Circumstance request is required to maintain the integrity of the 2019 Suspension Agreement and to prevent harm to domestic industries, which depend on strong enforcement of the Suspension Agreement to find relief from the persistent flood of unfairly priced Mexican tomatoes.”
Lawmakers have tackled the issue for several years, leading back to early 2019 when Senator Rubio and Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan (R) re-introduced a bill that would combat “Mexico’s unfair trade practices hurting Florida farmers.”
The letter criticizes Mexico, expressing that the “agreement is intended to cover the greenhouse-grown specialty tomatoes that the Changed Circumstance request seeks to exempt.”
The greenhouse-grown specialty tomatoes are labeled as “not contributing to any injury experienced by U.S. growers,” but the lawmakers argue that this is not true. Instead, they cite a report from the U.S. International Trade Commission, which reported that it had “reached the opposite conclusion.”
In turn, the lawmakers highlight that the Commission concluded that “U.S. producers face material injury from all fresh and chilled tomatoes imported from Mexico.”
The full letter can be read here.
