The Sweetener Users Association (SUA) last week told the Commerce Department that proposed amendments to the U.S.-Mexico sugar suspension agreements will put American jobs at food companies, large and small, at risk. The association filed comments in response to the department’s request for feedback on its new agreement in principle, announced June 7, to suspend antidumping and countervailing duties against Mexican sugar imports into the United States.
The new agreement aims to prevent dumping of Mexican sugar and to correct for subsidies the Mexican sugar industry receives.
The United States is a net importer of sugar, and until the U.S. sugar industry filed anti-dumping and countervailing duty cases in February 2014, there had been free trade in sugar between the United States and Mexico since early 2008. Mexico has become an integral part of the North American sugar trade and is a critical supplier of sugar to the United States.
The department is currently scheduled to sign final amendments to the agreements by June 30, 2017.
Click here for a fact sheet on the amended suspension agreements.
For more information contact Beth Hughes, IDFA director of international affairs, at bhughes@idfa.org.