17-21% tariff slapped on Mexico tomatoes this week
The U.S. has pulled out of a 30-year trade agreement with Mexico this week adding a 17 to 21% tariff on most Mexican tomatoes coming into the country. The move is expected to raise consumer prices for the popular vegetable with 70% of all tomatoes consumed in the US coming from Mexico.
“The [Tomato Suspension Agreement] has failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced Mexican imports, as Commerce has been flooded with comments from them urging its termination. This action will allow U.S. tomato growers to compete fairly in the marketplace,” the department said in a news release on April 14.
The U.S. imported $3.12 billion worth of fresh tomatoes from Mexico last year.The new announcement is separate from Mr. Trump’s trade war escalation promising new 30% tariff on the European Union and Mexico that will take effect on August 1.Concern in the Valley ag community looks to avoid a trade war with Mexico- a country that is a “key destinations for U.S. dairy exports, casting further doubt over U.S. dairy trade prospects in the coming months.”
The tomato tariff is being hailed by Florida growers but not by farmers in Texas and Arizona who worry that consumers will see higher prices. “We don’t want tomatoes to become the new egg crisis,” Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, said during a news conference on Friday, according to the Rio Grande Guardian.Gonzalez, along with other Texas lawmakers and the Texas International Produce Association (TIPA), are requesting a 90-day delay to withdraw from the agreement to allow more consideration and resolutions for the issue.Dante Galeazzi, CEO of TIPA, said the Tomato Suspension Agreement is crucial to South Texas.
“Terminating this agreement will undo three decades of stability and bring about a 17% duty on all Mexican tomatoes entering this country,” Galeazzi said during the same Friday news conference as Gonzalez.
The Packer,a major produce newspaper, reports that U.S. consumers could see increased tomato prices due to potential shifts in the U.S.-Mexico tomato trade, specifically the termination of the 2019 tomato suspension agreement. While field-grown tomatoes cost approximately $1.70 per pound in May 2025, the termination of this agreement could lead to a 10% price increase and a 5% decrease in demand, according to a professor of agribusiness at Arizona State University.
NatureSweet, a major greenhouse tomato grower based in Mexico chimed in.The company told FOX Business the suspension agreement has stabilized prices for nearly 30 years and its removal could lead to volatile supply and price spikes.
“As a Texas-based U.S. company in a low-margin business, we will really have no choice but to raise prices by close to 10% in order to be able to continue bringing our healthy vine-ripe specialty tomatoes to our consumers,” Skip Hulett, chief legal officer for NatureSweet, told FOX Business last week.
June farm equipment sales are down
Associated Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) reports U.S. sales of agricultural tractors and combines didn’t see any increases in June 2025. Total agricultural tractor sales fell 4.4%, while combine sales dipped 43.7% compared to June 2024.
“The ongoing slump in U.S. combine and tractor sales demonstrates the market challenges facing the agricultural sector,” said AEM Senior Vice President Curt Blades. “We know farmers are hesitant to make major investments with global trade instability, high interest rates, and increased input prices.
Big Beautiful Bill has water supply surprise
Milk Producers Council representative Geoff Vanden Heuvel writes that tucked away in the Big Beautiful Bill is a billion dollars of grant money to pay for “construction and associated activities that restore or increase the capacity or use of existing conveyance facilities constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation or for construction and associated activities that increase the capacity of existing Bureau of Reclamation surface water storage facilities.” Interestingly the final sentence of the section states: “None of the funds provided under this section shall be reimbursable or subject to matching or cost-sharing requirements.”
One thought: the money could be used to help restore capacity of Valley canals like the Friant-Kern facing reduced capacity from land subsidence coupled without local cost sharing obligations. Vanden Heuvel expects it could make water more abundant in the state.
Growing oranges is expensive
California Citrus Mutual (CCM) says it costs $4,215 per acre to grow navel oranges in California in 2025. That’s up from $3,300 in 2020 (a 35% increase), $2,712 in 2015 (a 75% increase), $2,099 in 2010 (a 125% increase) and $1,555 in 2005 (a 171% increase). Additionally, CCM reported that picking and hauling costs for navels are $1,210 per acre in 2025. Those costs are up 45% for five years, 60% for 10 years, 90% for 15 years and 110% for 20 years.
Eggs protect against Alzheimers
Older adults who eat eggs more than once a week may be less likely to develop Alzheimer’s dementia, according to a new study published in The Journal of Nutrition. The researchers found that participants who ate eggs weekly had a lower rate of clinical diagnosis and fewer Alzheimer’s-related brain changes after death. The study also identified dietary choline, a key nutrient found in eggs, as one possible contributor to this protective effect.
Focus on Chinese ag companies could impact major firms
National Hog Farmer writes” Multiple members of President Trump’s cabinet joined U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins Tuesday morning to announce a new Make Agriculture Great Again initiative: USDA’s National Farm Security Action Plan. According to the administration, the plan aims to address urgent threats from foreign adversaries, strengthen the resilience of the nation’s food and agricultural systems, and “claw back” farmland belonging to Smithfield Foods and Syngenta.
Secretary Rollins said the administration is looking at every available option and the U.S. will “likely see an executive order on this very soon from the White House” and will be “looking at multiple different authorities within the federal government to begin to claw that back.”
Smithfield owns the Farmer John’s label.