Lawmakers: Mexican tomato export practices unfair

Letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross calls for end to agreement suspending antidumping investigation.    Forty-eight congressional lawmakers on Friday urged Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a letter to immediately terminate an agreement suspending an antidumping investigation on fresh tomatoes from Mexico.
   The lawmakers said Mexican tomato exporters have used successive suspension agreements as “cover” for continued use of unfair trade practices to gain U.S. market share at the expense of U.S. industry.
   “Since the first tomato suspension agreement was enacted in 1996, hundreds of U.S. tomato growers across the country have been forced out of business,” the lawmakers wrote. “Mexico’s share of the U.S. tomato market has increased from 32 to 54 percent, while the share for U.S. growers has fallen from 65 to 40 percent. Since 2002, imports of Mexican tomatoes have skyrocketed 125 percent and U.S. production has declined 34 percent.”
   Three different agreements have been negotiated during the last 22 years because each previous agreement didn’t work as intended, and U.S. industry will continue to shrink if the status quo is maintained, the letter says.