Trump Tariffed Everything Canada Grows. He Never Touched the Winter Tomato.

By The Decision Room

Community Score: 50% | 6.3K views | 5d

0 community ratings: null thumbs up, null thumbs down

Picture an American grocery store in January: a perfect stack of ripe red tomatoes, glossy cucumbers, bell peppers in every color. The honest answer for where that "summer" actually came from is a small Ontario town under more greenhouse glass than almost anywhere else in North America — in a country famous for brutal winters. Canada sends the US more fresh greenhouse tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers than the US sends back — despite Florida, California, and the entire Sun Belt. It traces back to one farmer, Umberto Mastronardi, who saw Dutch greenhouses in the 1940s and decided to stop fighting Ontario's weather and control it instead. Canadian greenhouse vegetable exports grew from $1.6B (2020) to $2.3B (2025) — up 44% in five years, almost all destined for the US. As a "wholly obtained" agricultural product, greenhouse vegetables are CUSMA-compliant and exempt from Trump's blanket tariffs, the same protected category as canola and potash. Nobody in Washington has ever floated a spe

Tags: leamington ontario greenhouses, canada tomatoes exports, greenhouse vegetables canada us, where do winter tomatoes come from, canada us trade war, trump tariffs canada, mark carney, canada agriculture, cusma exemption, ontario greenhouse growers, james wren, decision room, canada leverage us, cbc, breaking news, latest news, world news, canadian news, donald trump news, news today