Department of Commerce finds 25 percent dumping margin on Mexican tomatoes

PRESS RELEASE On July 24, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) announced that Mexican tomatoes are being dumped in the United States.

The preliminary average dumping margin is 25.28 percent. This announcement refutes the recent Mexican claims that the data they submitted to the DOC would prove that Mexican tomatoes are not being dumped into the U.S. market. Evidence that the Mexicans are dumping is not surprising news to domestic tomato growers who compete every day against unfairly traded Mexican imports.

The U.S. tomato industry looks forward to showing the U.S. International Trade Commission that it has been injured by the surging unfairly traded Mexican imports. Since 1994, according to USDA, tomato imports have flooded the U.S., increasing from just 20 percent of the market in 1994 to 60 percent by 2017. Mexican tomatoes account for 90 percent of these imports. Meanwhile, the U.S. market share for American farmers has fallen from 80 percent to 40 percent as hundreds of growers have gone out of business.

About the Florida Tomato Exchange: The member companies of the Florida Tomato Exchange (FTE) produce over 90% of the tomatoes grown in Florida and are among the largest producers of tomatoes in California, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico. FTE member companies produce approximately 50% of the fresh-market tomatoes grown in the U.S. The FTE is the domestic petitioner in the antidumping case against fresh tomatoes from Mexico.

Contact:
Michael Schadler
Executive Vice President
Florida Tomato Exchange
michael@floridatomatoes.org