Tomato Stew : Politically colored bid to hike Florida crop prices upsets Mexico

The White House took a big step backward in trade policy this month when it squeezed a NAFTA partner and its plump tomatoes in a deal that clearly seems designed to help President Clinton win Florida’s 25 electoral votes.

Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor pressured the Mexican government to boost the price of its export tomatoes so the Florida tomato crop, America’s largest, would sell at inflated prices too. The Mexican government agreed to market tomatoes at no less than 20.68 cents a pound, which will give Florida growers a base to build on. The political ruling runs contrary to U.S. efforts over the past three decades to lower trade barriers, a goal enshrined in the North American Free Trade Agreement. The 1994 pact has sharply boosted U.S. agricultural trade with Mexico and Canada, its NAFTA partners.

But now, by launching the Commerce Department’s investigation into problematic charges that Mexico was dumping tomatoes in the U.S. market, the Clinton administration has jeopardized hard-won progress in free trade.

A key indication of the weakness of the Florida growers’ dumping charges against Mexico was a ruling last year by the International Trade Commission. It held that U.S. efforts to put pressure on Mexican tomato prices violated NAFTA and World Trade Organization rules. The Clinton administration has argued that cheap labor fueled Mexican exports.

For now, there is little the Mexicans can do except pursue slow legal steps to try to reverse Kantor’s initiative. By the time that process is complete, farmers and exporters of Mexico’s winter crop surely will have been damaged by a loss of consumer sales due to higher prices. And the harm will extend to the cause of free trade, too.