Mexico has surpassed Brazil as the major supplier of orange juice to the United States. Although the dollar amount of orange juice shipped to the US between January and June is half as much as it was last year, Mexico exported US $142 million of juice in the first six months of 2020, considerably more than Brazil’s US $91 million. Mexico exported $333 million worth of juice last year, beating Brazil by $3 million.
A recent CitrusBR study showed that sales from Mexico to the United States have skyrocketed since 2008, when US customs eliminated tariffs on imports of concentrated and frozen orange juice from Mexico as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In contrast, US imports of orange juice from Brazil pay a tariff of US $415.86 per ton.
The United States Department of Agriculture forecasts that Mexico’s exports for the 2019-2020 season will total 104,850 tons, as drought has decimated the orange production affecting the supplies available for processing.