Complaint: According to the U.S. Cornbroom Task Force, broom corn brooms are being imported into the United States from Mexico in such increased quantities as to be a substantial cause of serious injury, or the threat thereof, to the domestic industries producing articles like or directly competitive with the imported articles.

Background:
    --Following the implementation of NAFTA in January 1994, the U.S. tariff rate on broom imports from Mexico was reduced from 33 percent to 22 percent.
    -No assertion of any unfair trading practices is made in this complaint.

Import information:
    -- Imports from Mexico have accounted for an increasingly large share of total U.S. broom corn broom imports; this share rose from 36.6 percent in 1993, the year before NAFTA entered into force, to 44.0 percent in 1994 and further increased to 71.0 percent in 1995.
    --Imports of brooms from Mexico increased from 11.0 percent of U.S. consumption in 1991 to 25.9 percent of U.S. consumption in 1995.

Domestic industry information:
    Production: Domestic production, which had been fairly steady at about 1.1 million dozen per year during the period 1991-93, declined in 1994 to 1,063,067 dozen in 1994 and then fell sharply to 948,267 dozen in 1995.
    Prices: The weighted-average net free on board price for sales of lightweight brooms to unrelated customers fell in 1994-95 by about 10 percent.
    Profits: Based on usable financial data from 13 firms (which account for most domestic production). These data show that the industry as a whole operated at a loss in 1994 and 1995. In 1995, at least two producers of broom corn brooms ceased production and several other firms reported significant reductions in production of broom corn brooms. In 1996, at least two domestic plants were reported to be on the verge of closing because of reduced production levels.
    Employment: The total number of production and related workers, which remained relatively constant in a range from 419 in 1994 to 431 in 1991, fell sharply to 382 production and related workers in 1995, a decline of almost 10 percent.