This week, the Mexican tomato industry made a proposal to the U.S. Department of Commerce in hopes of preventing the assessment of anti-dumping duty on U.S. imports of tomatoes. The proposal includes price increases ranging from 6 to 34 percent and requirements for tomatoes with more than 35 percent condition defects to be returned to Mexico at the grower’s expense.
In February, The U.S. Department of Commerce notified Mexico of the intent to withdraw from the 2013 agreement suspending anti-dumping duties on tomatoes from Mexico. Anti-dumping duty is an additional duty that is levied against products that the Department of Commerce finds are sold at less than fair market value into the United States and injure the U.S. market.
Withdrawal from the suspension would occur on May 7th, 2019. Once the withdrawal process is complete, the U.S. Department of Commerce will resume the anti-dumping duty investigation and issue a final determination. Based on the history of this issue, anti-dumping rates are expected to be 4.16 percent to 188.45 percent if the International Trade Commission finds injury to the U.S. tomato producers industry.
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