President Donald Trump has announced that he will withdraw the United States from the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that he negotiated in 2018. The USMCA replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was negotiated by the Clinton administration in 1992.Criticisms of NAFTA included labor and environmental exploitation, claims of corrupt multinational corporations illegally profiting through government connections, and reports of drug cartel involvement in the treaty. Manufacturing jobs in the Midwest disappeared, drastically affecting U.S. workers. Mexico rapidly industrialized, especially along the U.S. border. Ross Perot, a 1992 presidential candidate, said NAFTA would produce a “great sucking sound” as jobs left the U.S. for Mexico.Business Week, in a July 1996 article titled “The Tomatoes of Wrath,” described an unusual NAFTA trade dispute between Mexican and American tomato growers. Florida tomato growers claimed economic damage to their industry from huge supplies of cheap Mexican tomatoes, largely from growers in the State of Sinaloa, Mexico’s largest tomato-growing region. The Florida tomato industry brought a case before the International Trade Commission seeking relief from Mexican tomato imports. In June 1996, the ITC ruled against Florida.
Clinton-era Sinaloa tomato scandal proves Trump was right to kill USMCA
Business Week, in a July 1996 article titled “The Tomatoes of Wrath,” described an unusual NAFTA trade dispute between Mexican and American tomato growers.
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