POLITICO Morning Trade: Sweetener Users Urge Changes in Mexico Agreement

SWEETENER USERS URGE CHANGES IN MEXICO AGREEMENT: U.S. food and beverage companies want the Commerce Department to lower key “reference” prices in a sugar trade agreement with Mexico and to revisit the definition of what is considered “refined sugar.”

The Sweetener Users Association asked for the changes in comments filed last week with the department, after officials signaled their intention to reimplement a 2017 agreement recently struck down by the court for recordkeeping failures.

The users group urged Commerce to instead reduce the sugar reference price to the level set in a 2014 agreement and to carefully examine “whether the 2017 provisions may have been detrimental to new entrants in the cane refining industry.”