The U.S. International Trade Commission announced the existing antidumping order on imports of fresh tomatoes from Mexico remains in place. USITC says Mexican producers didn’t prove that the market has changed enough to justify canceling the order.
Commissioners Jason Kearns and Amy Karpel voted to keep the rules in place. Chairman David S. Johanson did not participate in the vote.
This decision is the final result of an official investigation that the Commission started on Jan. 21, 2026. The Commission launched this review under the Tariff Act of 1930 to reconsider its original, older ruling on Mexican tomato imports.
The Commission says its public report, “Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico,” will contain the views of the Commission and information developed during the investigation and will be available on the USITC website by Aug.17, 2026.
Florida Growers Applaud the Decision
Robert Guenther, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange, noted that domestic producers have long anticipated this enforcement.
“American tomato farmers have spent three decades waiting for relief from dumped Mexican tomato imports under U.S. trade laws as Congress intended,” he says. “For 30 years, American tomato growers have been told that one more agreement, one more renegotiation, one more compromise would finally solve the problem. Five suspension agreements later, our domestic market share has dropped from 80% to 30%, farms have closed, jobs have been lost, and rural communities have been hollowed out. Last July, the Commerce Department finally said enough is enough — and the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the failed 2019 Suspension Agreement and enforce U.S. antidumping law was the right call. Today’s ITC decision confirms it.”
Guenther says following this announcement from the USITC, the Florida Tomato Exchange will enforce U.S. Customs and Border Protection antidumping duty order at every port of entry.
“Enough is enough,” Guenther says. “The Commerce Department made its decision. The courts have ruled. The International Trade Commission has now ruled twice. It is time for the Mexican government, Mexican exporters and U.S. importers to accept this outcome and move forward. American tomato growers want to focus our time and resources on growing tomatoes, serving American consumers and strengthening the domestic food supply — not on defending against the next petition.”
Texas Produce Leader Warns of Consumer Costs
Dante Galeazzi, president and CEO of the Texas International Produce Association, says his organization is disappointed the USITC didn’t see the recent request as meaningful.
“We thought that there was enough evidence to show that the situation when they assessed antidumping for tomatoes coming out of Mexico in the early ’90s is very different from the tomato situation today,” he says. “But that was not what ITC believes, and they believe that if the antidumping order went away, that Mexican tomatoes could possibly be dumped.”
Galeazzi says just because of the antidumping order, that doesn’t mean a potential Tomato Suspension Agreement is entirely off the table.
“We are still asking the U.S. government and Mexican governments to continue to find a path forward on a suspension agreement or another process or mechanism,” he says. “Because what we’ve seen is in the last year since the order’s gone away, we have seen tomato prices reach historic highs, we have seen a continued constraint on supply and we have really seen that there is a threshold at which U.S. consumers, and specifically U.S. retailers, will not carry tomatoes when they reach a certain price.”
Galeazzi points to when tomato supplies in April were very low and shelves bare because consumers and retailers hit that threshold.
“What are we actually doing in this scenario?” he says. “We are limiting ourselves. We are cutting off access for American consumers on tomatoes. We need a solution. A suspension agreement provides that solution.”
