Tomatillos, those little Mexican green tomatoes, were out because someone in Washington could not pronounce the word (toe-mah-TEE-oh).

Free trade would eliminate United States duties as high as 70 cents on a 25-pound box of Mexican tomatoes - about 10 percent of the wholesale price - or as high as 35 percent on imported melons.

The tomatillo is also known as the husk tomato, jamberry, husk cherry, or Mexican tomato, but the latter is more appropriately used to describe the relative of which bears smaller fruit.

Due to the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s which allowed Mexican tomatoes to flood the U.S. market and with ever increasing water restrictions, tomato acreage continued to decline.

Green tomatoes (not to be confused with Mexican green tomatoes called tomatillos, which are a cousin of the cape gooseberry) are no exception.

And it pledged a swift procedure to raise tariffs temporarily on Mexican tomatoes and other winter vegetabables if Mexican imports capture what Washington considers too large a market share.

In the last few months, the United States has put restrictions on Mexican tomatoes, refused to lift prohibitions against Mexican avocados and rejected a plan to allow Mexican trucks to cross the border.

NOTE: Tomatilloes, also called Mexican green tomatoes, are a small green fruit related to the gooseberry.

But it is Mr. Clinton who can now assert that his Administration stemmed the annual wintertime flood of low-price, juicy Mexican tomatoes.

Mexico's Commerce and Industry Ministry reiterated in a statement the "concerns about the manner in which the United States authorities have carried out the anti-dumping investigation into Mexican tomatoes."