American citrus growers are angry over the Trump administration’s decision to lift an import ban on lemons from northwestern Argentina.
“We were completely blindsided,” said Joel Nelsen, president of the California Citrus Mutual, an industry advocacy group. “They just flat-out ignored us, and that’s completely unacceptable.”
The Obama White House announced last December that it planned to revoke the ban, but Trump officials gave American growers a slice of hope when they said they would review the case again before making any decisions, says the LA Times. The American citrus industry had called for the ban, claiming that Argentinian lemons carry diseases that could hurt U.S. crops.
Argentina is a relatively small player in the international lemon market. Most of the competition to American growers comes from Chile and Mexico, which together make up 94 percent of lemon imports to the U.S., says the Times. Ninety percent of lemons grown domestically come from California.