U.S. warns duties on Mexican sugar could resume

The U.S. Commerce Department told the Mexican government this week that it intends to resume collection of antidumping and countervailing duties on sugar imports starting June 5 if a new agreement between the two countries is not reached.    The U.S. Commerce Department told the Mexican government this week that it intends to resume collection of antidumping and countervailing duties on sugar imports starting June 5 if a new agreement between the two countries is not reached.
   In 2014, Commerce reached final affirmative determinations in antidumping and countervailing duty  investigations regarding sugar imported from Mexico. In addition, the U.S. International Trade Commission found that domestic sugar producers were being unduly harmed by these imports from Mexico.
   However, that same year, an agreement was reached with the Mexican government and sugar producers to suspend the U.S. antidumping and countervailing duties on these imports.
   In 2016, the American Sugar Coalition raised concerns with Commerce about the operation of the agreements, and petitioned the department to formally review whether the agreements continue to meet U.S. law. Commerce in December issued preliminary findings that the agreements may not be working.
   U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Mexico’s Secretary of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal in March announced a renewed effort to resolve ongoing issues with Mexican sugar export and anti-bunching limits.
   The Sweetener Users Association (SUA), which represents U.S. sugar-using companies, argues the current U.S.-Mexico sugar agreements curtail access and raise the cost of sugar.
   “The agreements have distorted sugar markets through new constraints on supplies and higher sugar price floors than the ones Congress voted for in the last farm bill,” SUA warned. “They have also distorted the flow of raw and refined sugar from Mexico to the United States, leaving U.S. cane sugar refineries short of supplies, which means lack of supply for U.S. manufacturers.”
   SUA has lobbied for Congress to enact meaningful reforms to the U.S.-Mexico sugar trade through the federal sugar program in the 2018 farm bill.
   “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 was 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,” SUA said.