No Cheap Food, Doode: Tomatoes Set to Be Trade-War Casualty

"WASHINGTON -- President Trump dialed back his trade war -- but not on tomatoes.

Starting in July, new fees will hit fresh tomatoes imported from Mexico after the Commerce Department decided this week to end an agreement that has largely been in place for the last three decades.

Agricultural economists said the Trump administration's move was likely to increase prices for consumers, since about 70% of tomatoes sold in the U.S. are currently brought in from Mexico. Officials in Mexico said this week that they hope to renegotiate the agreement before the termination goes into effect.

If a deal isn't reached, tomatoes could be one of the first everyday products to become more expensive as a result of Trump's trade policies.

The exact price increase is unclear, economists said, but one estimated it could be about 10%. Tomato companies that import from Mexico warn the increase could be significantly higher. A one-pint package of grape tomatoes cost earlier this month an average of $2.48, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Some of those involved in the long-running dispute learned of the decision when they got a phone call this week from a Commerce Department official named Chris Abbott, a third-year Georgetown University Law student who graduates next month. Abbott, the deputy assistant secretary for policy and negotiations at the International Trade Administration, joined the first Trump administration even before graduating from college, working under Peter Navarro, who helped craft Trump's far-reaching tariff plan.

"The current agreement has failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced Mexican imports," the Commerce Department said. "This action will allow U.S. tomato growers to compete fairly in the marketplace."

The tomato agreement, established in 1996, was meant to resolve a dispute over whether Mexico is selling tomatoes at artificially low prices into the U.S. market. It set a minimum price for imported Mexican fresh tomatoes and established quality inspections. But it can often still be cheaper to grow tomatoes in Mexico year-round because of its climate and lower costs.

Agriculture Minister Julio Berdegue of Mexico denied this week that the country's producers sold tomatoes below cost in the U.S.

If the agreement ends in July, that minimum price vanishes, but companies will have to pay a fee of 20.9% on imported fresh tomatoes from Mexico, according to Commerce, although industry officials said that figure could shift.

That will make tomatoes from Mexico more expensive, benefiting growers in Florida, one of the few places in the U.S. that can grow tomatoes year-round.

In the longer term, U.S. tomato farmers might be able to grow more, but "production costs are a lot higher domestically than they are in Mexico," said David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University. "In the short term, we don't have the capacity to all of a sudden grow the amount of tomatoes we were importing from Mexico."

The U.S. tomato market has changed over the past two decades, as new varieties of cherry and grape tomatoes grown in greenhouses have become more popular. The volume of fresh tomatoes imported to the U.S. has grown by 176% since 2000, with most of that coming from Mexican greenhouses, according to the USDA.

Tomatoes grown in the U.S. now make up 30% of the total market share, down from 80% when the trade agreement was signed in 1996, according to the Florida Tomato Exchange, which represents Florida's tomato growers and packers.

This week's decision marked a win from the protectionist wing of Trump's trade team intent on shoring up U.S. industries. It is a blow to some U.S.-based companies such as NatureSweet, which grow most of their tomatoes in greenhouses in Mexico.

"Ending this agreement threatens the ability of companies like ours, which grow in both the U.S. and Mexico, to supply the marketplace with flavorful, vine-ripe specialty tomatoes people love," said Skip Hulett, chief legal officer at NatureSweet, which is based in San Antonio. "Do we really want to go back to the big, watery, flavorless tomatoes Florida is known for?"

If the agreement is terminated, NatureSweet is likely to pay in excess of $1 million in duties each week on its tomatoes grown in Mexico, Hulett said.

A study commissioned by the company in 2023 found prices for fresh tomatoes could go up by an average of 52% if all Mexican tomatoes left the market, or a 26% price increase if supply goes down 50%.

Robert Guenther, the executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange, said the idea that prices would go up because of a drop in supply from Mexico was a "false narrative."

U.S. companies that have invested in greenhouses in Mexico aren't going to suddenly stop growing tomatoes, Guenther said. Meanwhile U.S. consumers will benefit because "they'd rather have their tomatoes fresh and local," he said.

The agreement was briefly terminated in 2019, but a new agreement was reached a few months later. The Mexican government isn't party to the tomato-suspension agreement, and the U.S. duties aren't subject to trade retaliation as in the case of tariffs." [1]

1.  Tomatoes Set to Be Trade-War Casualty. Peterson, Kristina.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 19 Apr 2025: A1

 

Americans Are Protein Obsessed. It Drives Nutrition Experts Nuts. --- Food companies pack the nutrient into candy, coffee and even water

 

"Morgan Gates starts off his day eating six eggs. Later he will down a smoothie made with Greek yogurt, protein powder and berries. For dinner, it's a pound of red meat.

The 28-year-old sales representative is big on protein. "I found that if I prioritized protein and half-assed the rest of everything else, it gave me the body I wanted," he said.

Gates's two dogs follow a similar diet. The $367 billion U.S. food industry is on board, too, pushing protein beyond cereals and snack bars and into new realms like coffee, sweets and water.

Snack maker Wilde created a protein chip from chicken breasts, egg whites and bone broth. Protein Pints made its national debut this spring, offering cookie dough and mint chip-flavored ice cream tubs with 30 grams of protein each. Ontario-based Protein Candy rolled out brightly colored confections promising 14 grams of protein a bag -- the equivalent of eating a half cup of cottage cheese -- calling it for a while "candy that works as hard as you do."

To wash it down, there are protein-infused beverages made from whey or peas and collagen -- a staple ingredient in wrinkle creams and lip injections sourced from animal bones, skin or cartilage.

Feisty soda boasts 10 grams a can, making it more protein-dense than an egg, according to the brand. U.K.-based Vieve, a purveyor of fruit-flavored protein water, says it took the company two years to figure out how to slip 20 grams of protein into the drink.

The protein bonanza comes as food executives have taken note of Americans' mission to jam more of the star nutrient into their diets. Food makers in 2024 introduced 97 new products with "protein" in the brand name, more than double the year prior, according to market-research firm Mintel.

People like Daniel Imberman, a software engineer in California, are eating it up. The self-professed protein connoisseur says his focus is discovering "protein crap," healthy options that taste like junk food.

A fan of protein chips and protein ice cream, he's also partial to Barebells -- 2-ounce protein bars that come in flavors like marshmallow peanut road, birthday cake and salty peanut. "They're my guilty pleasure," he said.

But the processed protein buffet is driving many nutrition experts and personal trainers nuts.

Constance Contursi, a personal trainer in suburban Chicago, says many of her clients mistake junk food as healthy because it contains added protein. "How about a chicken breast, people?" she said. "How about an egg?"

America's long-running love affair with protein has intensified as weight-loss drugs like Ozempic have taken off, with many users trying to boost protein intake to offset lost muscle mass while they shed pounds. Meanwhile, a social-media-fueled focus on health and fitness is crowding more protein powders into kitchen cupboards, moving the chalky substances from a gym-rat mainstay to the mainstream.

Most Americans aren't hurting for protein. U.S. nutrition recommendations call for healthy adults to consume 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight a day. For a 150-pound person, that's about 54 grams -- found in a half-pound chicken breast, or two eggs with a cup of plain, nonfat Greek yogurt plus a cup of nuts.

Even with protein, you can have too much of a good thing, said Bettina Mittendorfer, professor of medicine, nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. Mittendorfer led a study that found that overload of certain amino acids, found in protein, can lead to cardiovascular disease.

For the study, her team shoehorned extra protein into the pasta and sauces they cooked for participants. "It's like eating sand on the beach," she said.

Mittendorfer said stuffing protein into waffles and soup has more to do with marketing than anything else. The nutrient Americans do need more of is fiber, she said. But that's a harder sell. "Would you rather have muscle strength and vitality, or prunes and Metamucil?"

Ballerina Farm, the ranch and viral social-media account run by Hannah Neeleman and her husband, Daniel Neeleman, recently launched a protein powder made with bovine colostrum, the milk-like fluid a mother cow produces in the first days after giving birth.

Hannah Neeleman is a Juilliard-trained ballerina who has captured online fame depicting her lifestyle in rural Utah as a mother of eight. Daniel is a weightlifter and bona fide protein devotee. But the protein powder's real star is Dandy, a beloved family cow.

Hannah said the couple began drinking Dandy's leftover colostrum -- plain and in smoothies -- each time she gave birth to a calf. "You have this concentrated dose of God-given elixir," said Daniel. Soon, the idea for Farmer Protein was born.

It's now their bestselling product, surpassing wooden measuring spoons, beef jerky and sourdough starter." [1]

1.  Americans Are Protein Obsessed. It Drives Nutrition Experts Nuts. --- Food companies pack the nutrient into candy, coffee and even water. Newman, Jesse; Tucker-Smith, Owe.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 19 Apr 2025: A1.

 

Mr. Trump is protecting a new developing robotic economy in the USA with trade barriers. When he is finished, everybody will want to participate. Luckily, big EU countries have their own trade barriers that they can expand. For small countries like Lithuania or even Poland this means death

 

"Many companies in the EU's internal market would be happy to have tariffs like only the 25 percent threatened by Trump. They have to contend with hurdles that restrict trade much more severely.

 

US President Donald Trump probably doesn't even know what tariffs he will impose on the EU in addition to the car tariffs on the "Liberation Day" he has proclaimed next Wednesday. The EU Commission is preparing for the worst – that much is clear. "25 percent or more on everything" is considered the most likely scenario. Many in Brussels still hope that Trump will be willing to negotiate after the global tariff crackdown. If a tariff war ensues, it will have noticeable consequences for transatlantic trade and thus also for prosperity in Europe.

 

Europeans therefore have every reason to look elsewhere for unnecessary trade barriers. Their attention is focused on old and new partners around the world. Yet there is plenty to do on their own doorstep.

 

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the numerous non-tariff barriers that continue to hinder trade within the EU itself correspond to an average tariff of 44 percent between individual member states.

 

Trump's tariffs so far seem downright modest in comparison. And that only reflects trade in goods excluding agricultural products.

 

 According to the IMF, the barriers to trade in services correspond to a tariff of 110 percent.

 

The figures, based on the ratio of domestic to intra-European trade flows, appear very high, says Niclas Poitiers of the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. Other studies arrive at lower costs resulting from intra-European trade barriers. But this changes little in the overall diagnosis: Even more than 30 years after its much-celebrated founding, the European single market is at best a "half-baked affair," says Jacques Pelkmans of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).

 

Anyone who wants to send goods or employees from Germany to other European countries can tell you all about it. "It's an extremely irregular system with very high demands," says Armin Schmiedeberg, who heads the supervisory boards of three family-run, internationally active medium-sized companies. Reporting requirements, insurance obligations, recognition of master craftsman examinations and professional qualifications, wage regulations – all of this is extremely complicated. Even if an employee from the Black Forest is only supposed to transfer to Austria or France for a few days, a lot of time is spent on applications, inquiries, and other bureaucratic procedures.

 

Take France, for example: There, authorities often only provide information in French, minimum wage regulations vary depending on the industry and region – and the documents that employees must carry abroad conflict with EU data protection regulations (GDPR).

 

By no means every clerk in the company is able to keep track of all this. "Large companies can obtain legal support, while smaller ones prefer not to send employees on assignments," says Schmiedeberg.

 

He himself was once send to Italy for a year. The result: Despite double taxation agreements, he initially had to pay the full amount of taxes in both countries, and half of the amount was only returned to his account years later.

 

There are long lists of examples of such trade barriers. The European Commission regularly publishes lists with dozens of examples. There are studies by the European Parliament. Last year, former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta presented his own report on the EU internal market on behalf of the EU member states. The EU internal market, or rather its imperfections, also plays an important role in the much-noticed report on competitiveness presented by his compatriot Mario Draghi.

 

The biggest obstacles in the internal market for goods traditionally occur in the trade of textiles, food, building materials, and electrical goods.

 

Many of them seem trivial at first glance. The difference is in the sum. Food must be labeled in a different language from country to country, and national nutrition labels are becoming increasingly common. Food must be delivered at a different temperature in one country than in another. Often, various regulations concerning health, safety, or environmental protection are involved. In addition to the European CE marking (which indicates that a product meets all EU-wide safety requirements), electrical devices must also bear a reference to the various local disposal regulations.

 

The situation is even more complicated with medical devices such as surgical robots, which, although tested and used in one EU country, may still have to undergo a complete approval process depending on the country.

 

Even the trade in waste often fails. It's because every country defines waste differently or has different requirements. The devil is often in the details. In Italy, companies can only contact authorities via a digital certificate, which is difficult for foreign companies to obtain. In Spain, payments to social security authorities must be made from a Spanish account, while payments to tax authorities are also possible from foreign accounts.

 

When entrepreneur Birgit Putz from Viöl, Schleswig-Holstein, wants to export her sheet cleaning machines for bakeries within the EU, packaging is the hurdle. Almost every country has its own rules, fees, and labeling requirements. It's particularly expensive for the entrepreneur in Austria, she says. Even if she only exports one machine to the country, she has to pay the annual service fee of €570 applicable in Austria for the 8.15 kilograms of cardboard and one kilogram of plastic packaging material, plus €50 for an authorized representative and a disposal fee of €150, a total of €770.

 

"Small and medium-sized companies like Birgit Putz's cannot afford to have a single person dedicated to packaging issues," says Helena Melnikov, Managing Director of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). The association has been collecting examples of intra-European bureaucracy for some time for its "I Can't Work Like This" campaign. "This leads to customers in some countries not being able to be supplied." The EU has attempted to create uniform rules with the Packaging Ordinance. However, according to Melnikov, this has "unfortunately only been partially successful."

 

For example, the law requires that an authorized export representative be appointed for each country, something small companies can hardly afford. The EU has repeatedly failed in similar attempts to harmonize individual products, often because countries are unwilling to abandon their own rules or simply pile on top of EU requirements. They accept the fact that this creates new hurdles for trade.

 

However, Letta criticizes in his report that protecting their own companies from foreign competition is often at least a welcome side effect.

 

This applies even more to services than to the trade in goods, as Schmiedeberg's experience shows. The required registrations are complex and vary so much from country to country that many companies have to engage external service providers to avoid the risk of a fine. Companies must prove that they comply with the locally applicable maximum working hours, minimum rest periods, and minimum wage rates for their posted employees. Some companies complain that it is easier to post employees to a non-EU country than to a country within the EU. Mobility is also limited by the number of professions that are regulated differently by EU member states. This affects 5,400 of them, or 22 percent of the workforce.

 

The A1 certificate is also a perennial favorite. Employees must carry it with them when they work in another EU country, even if only for a short time. The certificate serves as proof that they are covered by social insurance [1] in their home country. The employer must apply for it from the responsible social insurance provider. Here, too, each country has its own forms and procedures, and the application process takes an average of around 20 minutes. If it were up to the business community, business trips would be exempt from the certification requirement.

 

The once highly controversial Services Directive, with which the Commission sought to advance the internal market, has failed. Economists agree on this. "In the end, it allowed too many exceptions and therefore failed to reduce the fragmentation of the services sector in many areas," says Poitiers.

 

According to the Commission, 60 percent of the barriers in the services sector that were identified more than 20 years ago still exist today.

 

The potential that the EU is wasting here is enormous, according to a position paper by the trade association Business Europe. When the Services Directive was published in the Official Journal in 2006 after a long struggle, intra-European trade in services accounted for 5 percent of the EU's economic output, according to Business Europe. By 2022, it had barely increased to 8 percent.

 

Pelkmans estimates the potential of opening up the services sector alone at almost €400 billion – or 2.2 percent of economic output. Overall, he argues, the completion of the EU internal market, including the digital and energy markets, could increase prosperity in the medium term by more than €1.2 trillion, or 9 percent of economic output. Letta calculates in his report that removing just 20 percent of the barriers to cross-border trade in the EU would increase economic output by two percent and create more than one million jobs.

 

All stakeholders agree that it is time to act. The Commission is primarily pushing ahead with the completion of the capital market and is focusing on the internal energy market. Every new Commission since 2006 has shied away from a new attempt at services. "For this to happen, the member states must first send a signal that they are ready for genuine opening," says Poitiers, "so as not to get stuck in the minutiae again."” [2]

1. Social insurance is a system of social welfare that provides protection against economic risks through publicly-funded insurance programs. It's a type of social security that offers financial support to individuals and families facing various life challenges, such as retirement, disability, unemployment, or death of a family member. In the US, Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers' compensation are examples of social insurance programs.

 

Lithuania is particularly quick to engage in cheap dumping, which destroys the businesses of other EU countries. We constantly boast: "Look, there is a crisis, and we are the only ones in the entire EU growing the economy." We are not growing the economy, we are handing over the EU to the Chinese for destruction. We should be thrown out of the European Union for such greed. It is unlikely that things will go that far, but a blow struck by non-tariff measures is fatal to our businesses. D. Trump shows everyone the only way out.

 

2.  Härter als Trump: Wie die EU sich selbst blockiert. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Frankfurt. 29 Mar 2025: 20. Von Hendrik Kafsack, Julia Löhr und Johannes Pennekamp