The Tomato War: Trump breaks an old treaty to hit Mexico with more tariffs

The Tomato War: Trump breaks an old treaty to hit Mexico with more tariffs

America’s war of protectionism comes to Mexico every day, under different names: steel, migrants,fentanyl,or tomatoes. This time it’s the producers of the precious red fruit who are affected. President Donald Trump is resorting to an old controversy about unfair competition between farmers on both sides of the borderto impose another 17.09% tariff on Mexican tomato exports, which are not insignificant at $2.8 billion a year. This is not about punishing Mexico for not combating drug trafficking, as he has been claiming, or for allowing migrants to cross the border. This is a dispute from 1996, when American farmers complained that they couldn’t compete with the price of Mexican tomatoes entering their territory, but which was resolved for decades with agreements, the most recent in 2019. But the days of normalized trade relations are over.

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