Category Archives: In the News

The Baltimore Sun: Baltimore’s Domino plant is working overtime as raw sugar pours in from Mexico

Under the neon Domino Sugars sign in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, a century-old refinery steadily produces the crucial ingredient in American candy, soda and other foods. The already busy plant soon might need to burn even more calories. Unusually bad weather around the country ruined both U.S. sugar beet and sugar cane crops last year, leading government officials to seek an 80 percent increase in raw sugar imports from Mexico. …

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…

The Hagstrom Report: Court issues stay in Mexico sugar case as users seek changes

The Court of International Trade has issued a stay through Dec. 6 on its decision that a 2017 amended sugar agreement between the United States and Mexico is invalid because the Commerce Department did not release all communication about negotiations in the case. During this time the Commerce Department is taking comments on the suspension…

Food Business News: U.S.T.R. reallocates sugar imports to boost supply

WASHINGTON — The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on June 24 announced the reallocation of 100,071 tonnes, raw value, of the World Trade Organization tariff rate quota for imported raw sugar for the current fiscal year. “Based on consultation with quota holders, U.S.T.R. has determined to reallocate 100,071 tonnes, raw value, of the original…

POLITICO Morning Trade: Sweetener Users Protest Mexico Tariffs

SWEETENER USERS PROTEST MEXICO TARIFFS: U.S. food and beverage manufacturers who rely on Mexico for nearly one-third of U.S. sugar imports also are among the many business groups protesting Trump’s new tariff plan. “American food and beverage companies will be made even less competitive — yet again — by misguided government policy,” the Sweetener Users Association…

The Hagstrom Report: Sweetener users oppose Mexico tariff

The Sweetener Users Association, which represents industrial-scale users of sugar as an ingredient in food, said this week it is opposed to the tariffs that President Donald Trump has said he will impose on all Mexican goods coming into the United States on Monday if Mexico does not stop illegal immigration and drug movements into…

Bloomberg: Sugar Industry Is Exhibit A of Tariff Favoritism

Congress last week quietly passed the farm bill, a vast collage of legislation affecting the agricultural economy of the United States. This law, which Congress updates every five years, undergoes constant revision. But a few things never change. Foremost among these are the elaborate protections and subsidies given to nation’s wealthy farmers of sugarcane and sugar…

Agri-Pulse: Sugar tensions heat up ahead of farm bill

U.S. sugar farmers want to keep restricting the inflow of foreign supplies just as much as much as sweetener users – think candy and food companies – want to increase imports and push down prices. As a result, friction between the two sides is heating up as Congress prepares to write the next five-year farm…

Food Business News: Producers and users spar over sugar program

Sugar producers and sweetener users at the International Sweetener Colloquium in Orlando this week sparred over the impact, success and future of the U.S. sugar program, with such debate likely to intensify as the U.S. farm bill moves closer to markup sometime this year. “Last farm bill alone, every single commodity program went through a modernization…

Hagstrom Report / The Fence Post: Official: NAFTA withdrawal would mean 15 cent Mexican sugar tariff

If President Donald Trump withdraws from the North American Free Trade Agreement, the U.S. tariff on sugar imports from Mexico would revert to the 15 cents per pound level in place before NAFTA went into effect, Jason Hafemeister, trade adviser to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, told the International Sweetener Colloquium, a meeting of sweetener users…