Mexico Tariff

Mexico Tariff. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

It has been some time since Mexico leveled their tariff on pears and other northwest fruits. Mike Willett with the NW Hort Council recently discussed the issue with fruit growers.

WILLETT: As you know because of the dispute regarding the movement and the ending of a pilot program that allowed the movement of a small amount of trucks from Mexico into the United States, the Mexican government felt that the U.S. was in violation of the NAFTA agreement and they immediately imposed 20% tariffs on U.S. pear exports on March 19^th.

Estimated by the NW Hort Council was that the tariff would cost the industry some $6-million dollars.

WILLETT: And it’s having an impact on the pear shippers because that was the single largest export market for pears aside from Canada so it’s been a huge hit to pear growers and this is now strictly a political issue.

Willett says there was a lot of finger-pointing at first.

WILLETT: There was sort of a back and forth with the White House saying Congress needed to something but the coalition that NW Hort Council belongs to that’s working on this issue is telling us that strictly the resolution is now a political decision and really needs to be resolved at the White House level and we don’t see any significant movement at this point in time to resolve this trucking problem. So we’re still stuck.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.