San Diego avocado growers asked the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to limit the entry of Mexican avocado during their harvest, a demand that will reach the 2027 USMCA review. US purchases of the fruit fell 14.9% between January and September 2026, to 2,199.2 million dollars, according to the USDA, cited by Expansión.
The trigger is overlapping calendars: the California harvest runs from January to September and, according to the growers, packing houses already hold Mexican fruit when they want to sell. The California Avocado Commission is pushing for a seasonal tariff quota between March and September, and the proposal entered the comment process that the USTR opened on October 2 and will close on January 12, 2027. It matters for Mexico because the United States concentrated 87% of the volume of Mexican avocado exported in 2025, according to data from Sader and the GCMA cited by El Imparcial. In the 2026 review Washington did not back a 16-year extension; the treaty moves forward with annual reviews.
Jennifer Bantle, with 15 years of a Hass orchard in San Diego, calculates that this year she is paid 90 cents per pound, less than half of the two dollars she says she needs to cover costs. She proposes banning the entry of Mexican avocado on the West Coast or limiting the quota to September and December. Jaime Kovaly, of Valley Center, harvests about 36,000 kilos a year from 1,200 trees and says that in five years his inputs raised production costs by almost 50%, while the wholesale price fell 30% in 2026. He asks for import quotas, not tariffs, and for the limit to be written into the treaty. California went from supplying 90% of US avocado to about 10%, according to the growers.
The commission also asked the USDA, in a letter dated November 4, for a report on phytosanitary risks. The Mexican Association of Avocado Producers and Export Packers (APEAM) responded that images of burned fruit in Michoacán are out of context and that no unhealthy fruit has reached the border, according to FreshFruitPortal.
The calendar already has a date: comments close on January 12, 2027, and the review will determine whether the seasonal quota reaches the text. With 87% of its exports concentrated in the United States, any adjustment affects Mexican growers, in a year in which Sader and the GCMA forecast a 22% rise in volume and an 18.5% drop in price.
This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.