TRADE LIBERALIZATION UNDER NAFTA: TRADE IN AVOCADOS

The importation of fresh avocados was banned by the United States in 1914 after U.S. plant health officials identified avocado seed weevils in Mexi-can orchards as pests of quarantine importance (TED Case Study). In the early 1970s, Mexican officials proposed lifting the ban on avocados produced in the states of Michoacan and Sinaloa. All overtures were rebuffed until the early 1990s when bilateral negotiations, conducted with the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) provision of NAFTA, led to a resolution of this long standing disagree-ment. This paper first briefly reviews the negotiation process leading to the partial lifting of the ban and outlines the elements of the agreement. The sec-ond section draws directly from the first by identifying the underlying prin-ciples used in reaching an agreement. The third and fourth sections evaluate the market and economic impacts of the partial lifting of the import ban. The paper concludes by drawing some conclusions from the resolution and identi-fying lessons learned in the process