Safeguard measures and fresh produce trade: The case of US blueberry imports

Abstract

Safeguard measures are used to limit excessive import growth and protect domestic producers from unfair import competition. The global safeguard investigation for blueberries highlights these concerns and raises questions about the relationship between imports, prices, and the well-being of US producers. Although the US International Trade Commission (USITC) ruled that imports have not caused serious injury to US blueberry producers, it was important to further examine this issue. In this study, we employ an inverse demand model and dynamic vector autoregressive procedure linking source-specific fresh blueberry imports from countries like Mexico and Chile to US blueberry prices. Our results mostly support the USITC ruling. Results indicate that declines in US prices are small when compared to the level of import growth. Impulse response functions indicate that import price shocks are not long-lasting.