Florida Senators Introduce Bill for Seasonality AD Claims on Agriculture

Florida's bipartisan Senate delegation -- Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Bill Nelson -- introduced a bill that would allow trade remedy investigations to be raised for seasonal products. In a press release announcing the bill, S. 3510, Nelson said Florida growers of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, strawberries and blueberries "have been unable to fight back against Mexican trade abuses because U.S. law requires them to prove the abuse occurs year-round instead of just during the winter season when they make most of their sales." He said that NAFTA didn't make a change to antidumping laws, and so the two introduced the bill. “Enough is enough. Too many growers in Florida have been crippled by Mexican trade abuses,” Nelson said. “If the administration won’t fix this, Congress will.”

Arizona and California growers, who are also in competition with Mexican imports of tomatoes and strawberries, have not supported antidumping investigations in the past. The bill gets around that issue by saying producers who account for a majority of the domestic product "in any state or group of states that accounts for a major portion of the total production of the product during any ... period of time that concludes not later than eight weeks" after harvest can bring a claim.

A representative from Nelson's office said this bill would supersede the NAFTA agreement, if both became law.