Mexican tomatoes after the suspension agreement: what the 17% duty did to prices

On July 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce withdrew from the 2019 agreement that had governed Mexican fresh tomato imports for six years and issued an antidumping duty order of 17.09% on most tomatoes crossing the border¹. Fifteen months later the duty is still in place, the U.S. International Trade Commission has declined to lift it, and the national average retail price of field-grown tomatoes spiked to a record in April 2026 before easing back toward two dollars a pound^{4, 5, 6}. Here is what happened, what the numbers show, and what it means for a kitchen or produce department in Los Angeles.

How the agreement worked and why it ended

The dispute is older than most of the people buying tomatoes today. U.S. growers petitioned for relief from Mexican tomato imports on March 29, 1996, and rather than impose duties, Commerce negotiated a series of suspension agreements with Mexican growers: in 1996, 2002, 2008, 2013 and 2019¹. Under the 2019 version, Mexican signatories agreed to sell at or above minimum reference prices and to eliminate at least 85% of the dumping found in the original investigation on each entry¹. Either side could end the agreement with 90 days' written notice¹.

Commerce gave that notice on April 14, 2025, setting a July 14 end date². The Florida Tomato Exchange, which led the push to terminate, said the 2023 petition behind the decision had the backing of more than 60 members of Congress from 11 states, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the farm bureaus of the nine major tomato-producing states, and 15 fruit and vegetable trade associations². The exchange argued that Mexican imports had grown nearly 400% since the first agreement and held more than 70% of the U.S. market, while the U.S. industry's share had fallen from about 80% to 30%². Its executive vice president, Robert Guenther, said retailers were telling suppliers they would not absorb duty costs and called predictions of higher consumer prices a false narrative².

When the termination took effect, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the change was in line with the administration's trade policies and approach with Mexico, and that for too long U.S. farmers had been crushed by unfair trade practices¹. Greenhouse growers on both sides of the border disagreed. The CEA Alliance, which represents controlled-environment growers, said it was deeply disappointed and pointed to USDA data showing U.S. greenhouse tomato production up 69% from 2010 to 2023 while field-grown output fell 49%³.

What economists expected

Before the duty took effect, the forecasts clustered in a narrow range. Timothy Richards of Arizona State University estimated that about half of the duty would be passed through to consumers and predicted tomatoes would rise about 8.5% on average³. David Magana of RaboResearch noted that about 70% of the fresh tomatoes eaten in the United States are imported and roughly 90% of those imports come from Mexico, and said U.S. growers could not scale quickly enough to replace that volume, which would push prices higher³. Luis Ribera of Texas A&M pushed back on the claim that imports had made tomatoes cheap: importers paid about 31 cents a pound for Mexican tomatoes in 1995 and about 74 cents in 2024³.

Texas A&M research cited by Arizona's governor put $8.33 billion in economic activity and more than 50,000 agribusiness jobs in Arizona and Texas at risk, most of it tied to the warehouses, brokers and trucking that move Mexican tomatoes north; the Texas border region alone crosses about 2 billion pounds of tomatoes a year³.

What actually happened to prices

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks the average U.S. city price of field-grown tomatoes each month. From March through June 2025, before the duty, the series ran between roughly $1.70 and $1.82 a pound, and it stood at $1.79 in July 2025, the month the duty began⁴. Prices rose to $1.93 in August 2025 and then drifted back to $1.79 by January 2026, which is about where the forecasts said they would land after a modest pass-through⁴.

Then the market tightened. The average jumped to $2.26 in March 2026 and $2.69 in April, which CBS News reported as a record high for the series and which works out to about 50% above April 2025^{4, 5}. Analysts quoted by CBS did not blame the duty alone. They pointed to weather and disease that cut production in both Mexico and Florida, to the duty raising the cost of an import-dependent supply, and to higher diesel costs for refrigerated trucking after oil prices rose with the war in Iran⁵. By September 2026 the average had come back to $1.99, about 4% above September 2025 and about 11% above the month the duty began⁴.

Supply from Mexico is shrinking. USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service projected Mexican tomato production to fall 9% in 2026 to 2.55 million metric tons and exports to fall 7% to 1.8 million metric tons, citing the antidumping duty and a stronger peso; planted area was expected to drop 11% to 38,000 hectares⁷. Growers in Sinaloa, Mexico's largest tomato state, cut plantings during a drought, and wholesale prices inside Mexico more than doubled year over year in early April 2026 before easing as spring harvests arrived⁷.

The duty survived its first review

Mexican producers asked the ITC to revoke the order on the grounds that circumstances had changed. On June 30, 2026, the commission said no: market conditions had not changed enough to justify removing the duties⁶. The commission's report, released in August, rejected arguments based on shifts in consumer preferences, growth in U.S. greenhouse production and rising Canadian greenhouse imports, calling them continuations of trends that predated the order, and it noted that Mexico's share of U.S. consumption remained larger than at the close of the original investigation⁷. Guenther called the decision a victory for fair competition and the rule of law⁶.

Producer-specific margins range from 2.81% to 273.43%, but the all-others rate of 17.09% applies to most Mexican shippers⁷. In Mexico, the government responded with a national agreement on tomato production, supply and pricing and more than 248 million pesos in loans to 48 producers between June and August 2026⁷.

What about the rest of Mexican produce?

Tomatoes are the exception, not the rule. The antidumping duty is a trade-remedy order, separate from the broad tariffs of 2025 and 2026, and fresh produce that qualifies under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement has stayed exempt from each round of those⁸. When the Supreme Court struck down the emergency-powers tariffs on February 20, 2026, the administration replaced them with a temporary Section 122 surcharge that by law could run no more than 150 days at up to 15%, and USMCA goods were exempt from that as well⁸. On July 24, 2026, the Section 122 surcharge expired at the moment new Section 301 tariffs took effect on 60 economies. Mexico's rate is 10%, but imports that qualify for USMCA preference are exempt, and agricultural goods not produced in the United States in sufficient quantity are carved out regardless of origin⁸.

In practice, the Mexican cucumbers, squash, peppers and beans that fill Los Angeles produce houses between California seasons are not paying a tariff at the border. Tomatoes pay 17.09%.

What it means for Los Angeles buyers

First, expect tomato pricing to carry more volatility than it did under the reference-price system. The 2019 agreement set floors; the duty does not, and the spring of 2026 showed how fast a weather problem in Sinaloa or Florida can move a market that imports about 70% of its supply^{3, 4, 7}.

Second, the duty's effect so far has been closer to the economists' modest estimates than to the worst-case headlines, except when weather intervened. The BLS average in September 2026 was about 4% above a year earlier and 11% above July 2025⁴. Smaller Mexican plantings for 2026 are the number to watch, because less acreage in Sinaloa means less cushion the next time a cold snap or disease hits⁷.

Third, know the calendar. Our own beefsteak and Roma program runs June through August from California growers, packed in 25 lb boxes, with beefsteaks graded 4x5 through 6x6 and Romas sized Medium through Jumbo. The rest of the year the U.S. market leans on Mexican and greenhouse supply, and that is where the duty and the smaller Mexican crop will show up on invoices^{3, 7}. Call the office for this week's counts and we will tell you where the fruit is coming from and what it is costing.