When the Trump administration announced a new 17% tariff on Mexican tomatoes, Florida-based growers celebrated the win. They’d pushed for years to end a trade agreement that they said failed to keep Mexican imports from flooding the market.
But greenhouse growers, importers and industry groups in Arizona and Texas are blasting the Commerce Department’s withdrawal from the agreement, warning that it could raise prices and cost U.S. jobs.
“There has to be a better way of doing business than just putting duties on products that the consumers want,” said NatureSweet CEO Rodolfo Spielmann, who grows greenhouse tomatoes in Arizona and Mexico.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, he’s waged a sweeping trade war to promote domestic industries and specific political demands. Earlier this month, he threatened to impose a 30% tariff on Mexico for allegedly failing to dismantle drug cartels. But the tomato levy is distinct. It stems from the termination of a nearly 30-year-old trade agreement specific to Mexican tomatoes.
Growers like Spielmann hoped — and still hope — the agreement would be renegotiated instead. Because NatureSweet works on both sides of the border, he says it’s impossible to scale back Mexican operations without also hurting domestic ones.
The footprint of NatureSweet’s Arizona greenhouse could hold 30 football fields, Spielmann said. The company, whose tomatoes are primarily sold in grocery stores, planned to more than double its capacity in the United States, in response to growing demand and a desire to innovate. But it has now put that expansion on hold, he said, because of the change in trade policy.
