Oregon Public Broadcasting

Mexico is using expanded tariffs to pressure the Obama administration into allowing Mexican trucks into the U.S. And those new tariffs hurt the Northwest, as Tom Banse reports.

A first round of tariffs imposed last year on potato products, pears, cherries and Christmas trees cost Northwest farmers tens of millions of dollars.

Tom Banse / Northwest News Network

Now the addition of one of the Northwest's iconic exports raises the stakes. Mexico announced that effective immediately, U.S. apples will also be subject to a 20 percent tariff.

Mark Powers of the Northwest Horticultural Council says Mexico is the number one export market for our region's growers.

Mark Powers: "The whole point of these retaliatory disputes is to inflict pain and believe me, our industry is feeling it."

Powers says exporters have to eat the 20 percent tariff or lose the sale to other countries. He says that's unfortunate because Northwest farmers have nothing to do with the cross border trucking dispute behind all this.

The Teamsters Union is trying to keep out what it calls unsafe foreign competition.

Mexico charges that stance violates the North American Free Trade Agreement.