I used to eat my Caribbean bananas right on the line before doing the immigration control... they always have some trash bins around

Speaking from personal experience, the very last point is in the line before the Customs desk where the fruit-sniffing dogs find the bag you forgot you'd packed fruit into. Trust them, they're Good Boys! and they'll find it for you.

@ΦXocę웃Пepeúpaツ: "Come, mister tally man, tally me banana! ..." as the song goes

This brings up a potentially off topic followup question. If the point of monitoring fruit is to keep pests out of the country, do they handle the trash at/before Customs in any special way?

@dwizum agreed, that'd be very interesting to know.

There are a few behind-the-scenes videos of the process on youtube. Among other things, the process tends to include some of the following: Grinders, humans, conveyor belts, and incinerators.

@dwizum What happens to the garbage from a pre-customs side of an international airport?

@Brian the way that's worded sounds like the recipe for soylent green...

I’m going to add that whatever you do, please don’t throw food away. Give it to someone. Please don’t waste food. Thank you.

@dwizum they do.

"please keep in mind that there exist over 200 countries and it is difficult to keep track of all the "basic" rules for each country. I shouldn't have to write that on a travel website." But you didn't have to keep track of the basic rules for over 200 countries, did you? You didn't even have to "keep track of the basic rules" for ONE country. You just had to read the form you were given :-(

@AaronF as far as I can see, the form doesn't specify which location they have in mind when they say "bring".

It's printed several times on the reverse of the form that "the United States" is the location. Also on the reverse of the form, next to the bold text "Agricultural and Wildlife Products", is a complete description. I think that you didn't read the back of the form you were given, and I think this because in your question you only highlight in red the relevant part from the front of the form, and you don't highlight the equivalent section on the back. I think you did this because you're a frequent traveller who has never had any issues in the past with this regulation. It's easily done.

@AaronF thanks, good point about the location (surprising nobody before mentioned that), but if I go outside the plane with the fruits, throw away the fruits before immigration, then fill out the form, I don't know if I should still indicate "I'm bringing fruits to the US" because by the time I'm filling the form I'm not bringing fruits anymore.

I suppose that in that situation you should probably err on the side of caution and say that you are, (especially now that you've just had this experience!) I would probably tick the box about "soil/ranch/pasture" as well, just in case I stepped on some grass while I was outside the country, because I know how draconian they are. The only similar experience I have to yours is when I went to Australia, and there they go through everything in your bag as a matter of course. They're a lot more friendly about it than their US counterparts, though :-/

@AaronF if check "I bring fruits" but in fact I don't have any, I'm guessing an over-zealous US agent may threaten me because I would have "lied" on the form. At that level of absurdness (the vast majority of US agents are welcoming and reasonable, but it just takes a tiny fraction of over-zealous agents to reach it) I would prefer to have the exact expectation of how we are supposed to complete the form.

Beware of bring fruit over even if you are going to eat or dispose of it. I had an apple in my bag that I ate on the plane and then the customs dog jumped on me and all my things got searched. Fun!

@Whitney you hid the fruits in your stomach and brought them to the US. You intentionally lied on the form. No more global entry! You don't understand some basic rules.

Quite possibly, yes! I suppose you'd have to consider which would be the least worst lie: to have fruit and say you don't, or to not have fruit and say you do... You'll probably find the penalty for wasting customs agents' time is higher than that of bringing unauthorised fruit into the country ;-(