Not So Sweet

Passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) this past week will open up six Central American countries for an increase in trade. It will result in more products being produced in those countries from goods made in the USA and continue the push for more free trade that has lifted the living standards in the USA and many other countries. One of the fiercest opponents to CAFTA has been the US sugar industry.

Sugar was first protected during WWII and like most governmental programs it has been difficult to kill. We still have a federal telephone tax that was put in place during the Spanish-American War as a luxury tax when telephones were only used by the rich. It is no different for the sugar subsidy. It is time for it to go.

Every time that you buy a candy bar or consume any other product which contains sugar you are paying a 140% tax. The world price for sugar is under 9 cents/pound but we pay around 22 cents/pound in the USA. CAFTA would open up imports of sugar over a 15 year period to only 1 percent of all US production, but the sugar industry doesn’t want ANY imports.

They have been greedy and tried to stand in the way of freedom in opposing CAFTA. I’m glad that freedom triumphed.