Trump to seek NAFTA fix for southeastern produce growers

The Trump administration plans to come to the bargaining table during this week's opening round of NAFTA talks with a proposal aimed at protecting U.S. produce farmers from cheaper Mexican imports, POLITICO has learned. The plan would essentially make it easier for growers of fruits and vegetables to allege that Mexico is selling produce in the U.S. at below-market prices by allowing American producers in a given region to band together to bring an anti-dumping case backed by seasonal data, said Joel Nelsen, head of the USDA advisory committee that crafted the recommendation.U.S. trade negotiators are expected to introduce the proposal during a negotiating session on Saturday. The language would make it much easier for produce companies to bring action. Under current trade law, a majority of the industry nationwide must prove injury based on at least three years of annual data.“We reached an agreement that the United States should allow production areas to identify whether or not fruit sold at prices below cost is impacting a product’s revenue, without taking into consideration what’s being done” in other regions of the country, said Nelsen, who is president of the trade association California Citrus Mutual and chairman of USDA’s Agricultural Technical Advisory Committee for Trade in Fruits and Vegetables. The proposal is likely to please growers in the southeastern U.S., but it could face opposition from powerhouse produce growers in western states, many of whom moved parts of their operation to Mexico to take advantage of the longer growing season there and NAFTA's tariff-free borders. "The only way to really describe it is as Pandora’s box,” Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, said of the proposal. The group represents Mexican growers and advocates for free trade in produce in North America. “If Florida does it, if the tomato growers in the Carolinas do it, if the New Jersey growers do it, then you’ve created essentially a year-round tariff."Jungmeyer said such a move would undoubtedly have a ripple effect across the industry. "If this proposal were agreed to by all three countries, you would have the apple growers in Chihuahua, Mexico, as well as in British Columbia, Canada, saying, 'Well, gosh! I want to have my own window! I want to keep out the apples from Washington state, or from Michigan, or New York.'”