(6 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Uruapan, Mexico – 5 March 2025
1. Various of workers labeling avocados at packaging plant
2. Various of avocado production line
3. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Jonathan Trujillo Magaña, Avocado wholesaler:
"This week we woke up to the news and actions taken and it took us by surprise, because we didn’t think it was going to happen and it changed from night to day the market environment.”
4. Various of avocado packaging production line
5. Worker pulling pallet filled with boxes of avocados
6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Jonathan Trujillo Magaña, Avocado wholesaler:
"Producers are a bit on standby, halting production. Wholesalers want to stock up and sell because prices are very high right now. But there is also an interesting phenomenon taking place now, that suddenly wholesalers and producers are turning to the local market, because apparently the local market is now a lot more stable than tan international market that is completely uncertain with political and economic issues.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Uruapan, Mexico – 4 March 2025
7. Various aerials of avocado orchards
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Villa Madero, Mexico – 5 March 2025
8. Various of farmers picking berries
9. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Estefanía Zavala Sánchez, Berry grower:
"We could take action as producers to implement new commercial strategies and find new commercial clients and not just focus on the United States. Although we also have to be very realistic, because 80% of our entire production goes directly north.”
10. Various of farmers picking berries
STORYLINE:
Avocado growers idled their pickers in central Mexico’s mountains after the U.S. imposed 25% tariffs on Mexican imports.
Producers and the logistics companies that choreograph international commerce paused to assess the new reality.
Many expressed hope that a resolution would not be long in coming as U.S. President Donald Trump reckoned with the repercussions of tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, the United States’ top three trade partners.
Some 80% of Mexico’s exports go to the United States, part of more than $840 billion in trade between the countries last year.
The Trump administration has offered various justifications for the tariffs including fentanyl and illegal immigration coming from its neighbors, as well as a desire to move more manufacturing back to the United States.
"We didn’t think it was going to happen and it changed from night to day the market environment,” said avocado wholesaler Jonathan Trujillo in Uruapan in Michoacan state.
Avocados, sometimes called "green gold” for their ability to draw prices that change livelihoods, were already an expensive buy in the produce section of U.S. stores.
Still, Mexico exported some 110,000 tons of avocado ahead of this year’s Super Bowl.
But producers worry a 25% tax passed on to consumers could impact Mexico’s biggest avocado market.
The harvesting pause quickly increased prices as the supply tightened and wholesalers like Trujillo began to look to the large domestic market, which while bringing a lower price, now appears far more stable than "an international market that is completely uncertain with political and economic issues.”
Berry grower Estefanía Zavala Sánchez in Villa Madero, Michoacan said producers like herself expected to feel the tariff pinch.
The only potential positive would be that it pushes growers to develop other markets.
However, Zavala admits they need to be realistic.
"80% of all of our production goes directly north,” she said.
AP Video by Armando Solís
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