Despite the possibility of new tariffs on produce imports under a new Trump administration, there are plenty of reasons to discard the idea, says Lance Jungmeyer.
“No one is excited about the idea of tariffs,” said Jungmeyer, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, which represents the interests of produce distributors in Arizona, California and Texas.
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement went into effect in July 2020 during the previous Trump administration, Jungmeyer said. That agreement preserved tariff-free imports of produce from Canada and Mexico. Looking to his next term, Trump may be more interested in putting in place tariffs on manufactured goods from certain countries, Jungmeyer speculated.
“Nonetheless, everybody’s worried about this because you have to look at what it could mean to your business,” he said.
One key argument against new tariffs on produce imports, he said, is that President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to fight inflation and to reduce prices at the grocery store.
“If you put tariffs on Mexican fruits and vegetables, there’s no doubt about it, you’ll have inflation in the supermarket and you will have bare shelves,” he said. “Consumers will not be happy with that.”
Jungmeyer said the USMCA will be reviewed or renegotiated in 2026, with hearings likely to start in mid-2025.
For all of next year and continuing on to 2026, he said interested parties in American trade will be working on their positions for the USMCA, seeking to represent the interests of industries impacted by the agreement.
