White House Offers Sugar Trade Concession

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is offering new concessions to the sugar industry to win support for its troubled Central American trade agreement. Lawmakers representing sugar states are wary.

In meetings this week on Capitol Hill, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns promised to use his authority to keep Central American sugar off the U.S. market.

"I've talked about an idea that literally says, `Look, in the powers I have today, which I will commit to using, we could hold sugar harmless,'" Johanns told reporters Thursday.

The Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is known as CAFTA, would cover trade with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

Johanns said, "I can guarantee that sugar is not going to be impacted by the CAFTA agreement during the life of the farm bill."

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more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050623/ap_on_go_co/congress_cafta;_

[ET Awful]

1. In America, first you get the sugar,

then you get the power, then you get the women

[ClintonTyree]

2. Another gift to the Florida....

sugar cane growers. Like Jeb and Junior haven't sucked these guys off enough already, but I guess big sugar is getting what it paid for. :shrug:

[Shakespeare]

3. The Florida sugar barons will be so pleased.

They'll be so happy, their corporate wallets will just burst open and spontaneously bestow large contributions on Jeb and his minions.

[Cornjob]

4. U.S. residents will continue to pay 4-5 times as much...

as Mexicans pay for their sugar.

A gigantic rip-off!

[stickdog]

5. So this is a fight between corporate interests only, right?

And the fact that CAFTA will lower both US and Central American wages doesn't figure in the fight.

Right?

[mom cat]

6. So it really wouldn't be a free trade bill after all.

[The Sushi Bandit]

7. Sugar is very important on Maui

we do need some protection for our sugar

[silverweb]

8. Fuel.

Sugar cane is a much more efficient source for producing ethanol than corn is. I wonder why the growers don't push that aspect of it. U.S. ethanol producers could use as much as they can produce and more. The sugar growers could even export it to Brazil, so they don't have to cut down more rainforest to grow it.