(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he had a private meeting late Monday afternoon with Mexico’s ambassador to the U-S. Grassley says he and Ambassador Esteban Moctezuma Barragán focused on trade issues between our two countries, which included discussion of deadly threats to livestock and humans from a tiny parasite. Grassley says the Mexicans are also concerned about exports of a certain vegetable. Grassley says, “He’s asking for consideration of certain attempts by some members of Congress to end a decades agreement that we’ve had on tomatoes.” Almost all of Mexico’s tomato exports come to the U-S, and the Trump administration plans to end the trade agreement that allows Mexican tomatoes into the U-S duty-free. Starting in July, the U-S Commerce Department says tomatoes from south of the border will face a tariff of nearly 21-percent.

“A certain percentage of the tomatoes that are eaten in the United States come from Mexico,” Grassley says, “and that’s under some agreement that certain states — and their senators from those states — want to abrogate that agreement.” The looming changes worry Mexican growers, Grassley says, as tomato exports to the U-S generated more than a billion dollars in revenue in 2023. Grassley says there’s rising concern about parasitic screwworms that are coming into the U-S on some livestock from Mexico, though he notes the animals may have originated in South America. A release from the U-S-D-A says New World screwworms are deadly flies that lay eggs in open wounds. Once the larva hatches, it attacks living flesh and can be extremely deadly for livestock, pets, wildlife and even humans. “So yesterday, the Secretary of Agriculture put some restrictions on bison, cattle and other animals coming into the country because they could possibly bring in screwworms,” Grassley says. “That’s hopefully just a temporary restriction.”

The U-S has halted all imports of live cattle, horses and bison from Mexico, a ban U-S-D-A officials say will be reviewed on a month-to-month basis.