3 effects that Trump may have tariffs imposed on Mexican tomatoes

- Author, Daniel Pardo
- Author's title, BBC World correspondent in Mexico
10 minutes

Now it touched the tomato.

This Monday, the United States Department of Commerce announced that the imported tomato from Mexico will have a tariff of 17.09%.

The argument of the Washington authorities is that Mexican producers offer the product at a lower price than American producers, and that affects the local market.

Since 1996, tomato has been a separate line in permanent negotiations between both countries in commercial matters. The complaint of American producers, according to which Mexicans incur dumpingcomes from then on.

However, Washington for years prioritized free trade with its southern neighbor and signed suspension agreements for tomato tariffs.

The last one, signed in 2019, has just knocked down, and this is one more proof that, with Donald Trump in the presidency, many of the commercial policies that generated bipartisan consensus are now questioned.

Until Trump, however, change his mind. Because the tomato tariff is inserted into the broad portfolio of issues to negotiate with the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum.

“We do not agree,” Sheinbaum said Tuesday. “The Mexican tomato will continue to export, even with the tariff, because it has no substitute.”

The president announced plans to support Mexican producers and adhered to the statement of the Ministry of Economy, published on Monday, in which the new “unfair” tariff was qualified.

In the document, the Carteara led by Marcel Ebrard detailed that Mexican tomato producers have been negotiating with their northern counterparts for three months, but “although the proposals were very positive for the US, they were not accepted for political reasons.”

The tomato war, which has historically been fought in the commercial field, also occurs in the politician.

1. Economic effects

As Sheinbaum warned, most likely, if the tariff is maintained, the most immediate effect is on tomato consumers in the United States.

Two out of three tomatoes consumed in the country come from Mexico, according to official figures.

Thanks to tariff suspension agreements, and the current free trade agreement between the two countries, tomato exports to the north doubled in the last decade.

Today they represent an exchange equivalent to almost US $ 3,000 million.

Just Tuesday, the Labor Department reported that inflation in the United States rose 0.3% in June with respect to May, an increase greater than that of previous months attributed to Trump tariffs to imported consumer goods.

Antonio Ortiz-Mena, Mexican expert in Geopolitics and Professor of International Trade at Georgetown University in Washington, says that these tomato tariffs are part of an old story but with a government other than the previous ones.

“We have a much more protectionist government and a lobby of Emporado Tomateros,” he says.

The counterpart of Mexican producers is the Florida tomato industry, which produces three times less.

“There is no way that Florida can supply the local market in terms of quality, quantity and price; impossible,” says Ortiz-Mena.

In addition, he says, “there are US companies that have investments in tomato in Mexico, not only because of the low labor costs but, above all, due to climatic conditions and by economy of scale. Then they are also affected.”

2. Political effects

The measure can also have political effects.

Part of Trump's success in the presidential 2024 was the tiredness of consumers for inflation after pandemic.

Meanwhile, Claudia Sheinbaum expects this tariff to be part of the permanent negotiating table that your government starts with Washington, in which issues such as migration, the fight against fentanyl traffic and the persecution of the narco posters are treated as the commercial.

The weekend, Trump announced that August 1 will impose a 30% tariff on Mexican imports. In a letter to Sheinbaum, he acknowledged that the country has been useful to stop the flow of fentanil and migrants, but said it has not been “enough to prevent North America from becoming a drug trafficking game park.”

Sheinbaum, with a “cold head” strategy and “respect for sovereignty,” has given up Trump's pressures: he sent the border alone, modified his anti -drug policy and sent to the US. to drug trails requested by justice.

But Trump insists that it is not enough, sending a message to the world that cooperating with him in a “quiet” way as Sheinbaum has proposed is not a guarantee of anything.

“The Mexican government has been extremely as prudent, but if it only faces barriers and barriers, there will be a time when, for calculation of internal policy, it has to stop agricultural exports to the US,” says Ortiz-Mena.

Mexico is the first commercial partner of the United States and the great American industries of corn, soybeans and wheat depend on the sales to the south of the border.

It is difficult to think where they could place those US products if it is not in Mexico.

3. Social effects

In addition to the above, the tomato tariff can have social effects.

The production industry uses at least 500,000 people. His works, if the tariff is indeed fulfilled, will be at risk.

“It causes a lot of uncertainty among all producers,” Faustino Delgado, a guild leader, told Radio Formula.

“The Mexican tomato is going to be reduced, but the question is companies is how they will do to get out of this problem, they will have to reduce jobs, they will have to rethink how many hectares they will sow,” he added.

That industry is also in Sinaloa, where the so -called “Sinaloa Red Pearl” 'occurs. It is an agro -export and land land, also, one of the most important drug trafficking posters.

During the last year a war between the factions of the Sinaloa cartel has put the state in suspense and has imposed a kind of curfew in its capital, Culiacán. The roads where the tomato comes out, in addition, are the central scenario of the battle.

“A tariff like this exacerbes the reasons for Mexican workers or want to migrate to the US in search of opportunities or go to swell the ranks of organized crime,” says Ortiz-Mena.