Volume I, No. XIV
A dumping case cut to the calendar: Commerce's preliminary margins on Mexican winter strawberries
Commerce found preliminary dumping margins of 3.37 to 5.28 percent on Mexican strawberries entered from November through March, far below the 18.32 percent the Florida petitioners alleged. The case rests on a product defined by season and an industry defined by region.
The Florida growers who brought the case asked for 18.32 percent. The Department of Commerce, in a preliminary determination published on August 21, found 4.83 percent for most Mexican shippers, with 5.28 percent for Driscoll’s Operaciones and 3.37 percent for Mainland Farms1,2. The gap is ordinary for an antidumping case, where the petition’s estimate is built from the information reasonably available to a domestic industry and the preliminary figure comes from the exporters’ own sales and cost data2. What is less ordinary is the shape of the thing being measured. The investigation does not cover strawberries. It covers strawberries from Mexico that enter the United States between November 1 and March 31, sold into a market that the petitioners defined as 28 states rather than the country as a whole1,2. It is the first antidumping case against Mexican winter strawberries, according to the petitioners’ counsel, and it moves a long Florida complaint about Mexican winter produce from political appeal into the statutory machinery6.
The instrument: section 731 and a regional industry
The legal authority is the antidumping statute, section 731 of the Tariff Act of 1930, under which Commerce determines whether imports are sold at less than fair value and the U.S. International Trade Commission decides whether a domestic industry is materially injured or threatened by reason of them1,2. The preliminary determination was made under section 733(b), and section 733(d) directs Commerce to have U.S. Customs and Border Protection suspend liquidation and collect cash deposits from the date of publication1. The deposits remain in place “until further notice,” and the rates can change in the final determination1.
The petition, filed December 31, 2025, came from an ad hoc coalition of Florida growers, the Florida Strawberry Growers Association and a state agency, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services3. Commerce did not initiate on the petition alone. On January 20 it extended its deadline by 20 days to poll the industry, because the petition had not shown that producers accounting for more than half of total production supported it2. Polling questionnaires went out January 21 to growers inside and outside the petitioners’ region2.
The region is the distinctive part. Section 771(4)(C) lets the case proceed on behalf of a regional industry if producers in the region sell all or almost all of their output there and demand in the region is not supplied to any substantial degree by producers elsewhere in the United States2. The petitioners drew the region as 28 states running from Texas and Wisconsin to Maine and Florida2. California is not on the list2. Commerce sidestepped the fight for purposes of initiation: it found that supporters cleared the statutory thresholds “under both a regional analysis and on a national basis,” and so the petition was filed on behalf of the domestic industry however that industry is defined2. The Commission, which makes its own like-product and industry findings, filed its preliminary affirmative determination on March 10, finding a reasonable indication of material injury3.
How the seasonal scope works at the border
The scope is the mechanism, and it is defined by the calendar. As initiated, it covered strawberries “harvested or entered” from November 1 through March 312. In the preliminary determination Commerce deleted “harvested or,” so the test is now the date of entry1. That makes the scope something CBP can administer from the entry summary, and it removes an argument over where and when a given berry was picked.
Within that window the reach is broad. The scope covers fresh and chilled strawberries, stemmed or not, whole or sliced, organic or conventional, loose or in retail packs, and it expressly includes fruit that is “chocolate covered or other coated confectionary items” and fruit further processed in a third country1. The listed tariff lines are HTSUS 0810.10.4020, 0810.10.4040, 0810.10.4060 and 0810.10.4080, and, for entries before 2024, 0810.10.4010 and 0810.10.4090; Commerce says the written description, not the codes, controls1.
Several practical points follow from the published terms:
- Timing of deposits. Suspension of liquidation runs from August 21, but subject merchandise is only fruit entered November 1 through March 31 [1]. In practice, deposits begin to bite with the first entries of the 2026-27 winter season.
- Who pays which rate. An exporter that was examined gets its own rate; a non-examined exporter selling fruit from an examined producer gets that producer’s rate; everyone else pays 4.83 percent [1].
- How long deposits last. At the request of Driscoll’s, filed August 17, Commerce extended provisional measures from four months to no more than six, and pushed the final determination to no later than 135 days after publication [1]. Commerce’s fact sheet says the final should be announced on or around January 8, 2027 [4].
- What comes next on the record. Commerce intends to verify the respondents’ data. Case briefs are due seven days after the last verification report, and hearing requests are due within 30 days of publication [1].
Two methodological signals sit in the notice. Commerce calculated constructed export prices under section 772(b) of the Tariff Act1. And the preliminary decision memorandum carries a section headed “Particular Market Situation,” the provision under which Commerce may set aside reported costs it finds distorted1,2. The notice does not say what Commerce concluded in that section.
Who bears the winter strawberry deposits?
The trade at stake is large and stable. Commerce’s fact sheet counts 200.6 million kilograms of Mexican strawberries, worth $933.0 million, in the November 2024 to March 2025 period of investigation, against $927.1 million and $926.4 million in the two prior winters4. The deposits are collected on that trade at entry, and the two examined companies are the exporters selected as mandatory respondents because of their volume, according to Mexico Business News1,8.
The petitioners say the cost to shoppers will be modest. “I don’t think it’s going to shock the wallets of U.S. consumers,” Daniel Pickard of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, lead counsel for the coalition, told Agri-Pulse in July6. Sen. Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in July that “This is not competition — it is a targeted effort to drive American family farms out of business,” according to Agri-Pulse, which also reported his office’s figure that Florida produces 15 percent of U.S. strawberries6.
The Mexican side argues that the two industries do not meet head-on. “We don’t compete with US growers; we complement them,” José Luis Bustamante, a former president of the Mexican berry exporters’ association Aneberries, told FreshFruitPortal.com, adding that Mexico ships “when US fruit availability is at its lowest”7. He said that on tariffs, “over the medium term, it’s the consumer who ends up paying”7. After the preliminary determination, Mexico’s Ministry of Economy said it had “grave concern” and objected to the method itself, according to Mexico Business News: “The particularity of this petition is that it is based on differentiating winter strawberries from strawberries in general, as well as separating certain eastern U.S. states from the total national market”8. The ministry said the case affects nearly 5,000 Mexican growers and argued it is inconsistent with GATT 1994 and the USMCA, the outlet reported8.
The margins themselves cut both ways. At 3.37 to 5.28 percent they are well below the petition’s figure, which supports the Mexican claim that the alleged price gap was overstated1,2. They are also affirmative for every company examined, which keeps the case alive for a final determination1,4.
The longer view: tomatoes and the suspension-agreement path
The obvious precedent is fresh tomatoes from Mexico, and Mexican officials have drawn the comparison themselves8. Commerce initiated that investigation on April 18, 1996, and suspended it on October 28, 1996, by agreement with Mexican growers5. The agreement was replaced in 2002, 2008, 2013 and 2019, each time after one side withdrew or asked to reopen the terms5. The Florida Tomato Exchange asked Commerce in June 2023 to end the 2019 agreement, and Commerce gave notice on April 14, 2025 and terminated it effective July 14, 2025, imposing an order with a 17.09 percent all-others deposit rate5. Nearly three decades passed between the tomato initiation and an antidumping order, most of them under suspension agreements.
Strawberries could follow the same route. Mexican exporters may propose a suspension agreement after a preliminary determination, Agri-Pulse reported, under which they would have to stop the pricing at issue6. Pickard has argued the other way, that an order delivers relief “as a matter of law without any political discretion involved”6. The difference matters for growers on both sides: an order lasts five years and can be renewed, according to Agri-Pulse, while a suspension agreement, as the tomato history shows, can be reopened whenever one party decides the terms no longer suit it5,6.
The Commission’s final vote is the larger test. It will come before the later of 120 days after the preliminary determination or 45 days after Commerce’s final, and it will have to settle whether a winter-only product and an eastern regional market are the right frame for measuring injury1. Mexico says the Commission already doubted both in March8. The first winter shipments under deposit will cross in November, before either agency has answered that question in final form.