The Bush Administration exempted sugar from the recent bilateral trade liberalization agreement with Australia. But why did it imperil the agreement to preserve an obstacle to trade that benefits relatively few Americans and only imposes costs on most of them? Aaron Lukas provides a brief review in "A Sticky State of Affairs: Sugar and the U.S.-Australia Free-Trade Agreement".
"...The U.S. sugar program is a classic case of concentrated benefits and diffused costs. A very small number of sugar growers receives enormous benefits, while the costs of providing those benefits are spread across the U.S. economy. Consequently, U.S. sugar producers have a very strong incentive to lobby and fund campaigns of U.S. policymakers. And they have done so. Dominated largely by two companies in Florida (Flo-Sun and U.S. Sugar), the sugar lobby has been a major financial contributor to incumbent politicians. In the 2000 election cycle, for example, Flo-Sun, owned by the wealthy Cuban-American Fanjul family, contributed $690,750 in "soft money" to both the Democrats and the Republicans and $78,200 in direct funds to candidates and the parties. [13] Overall, the U.S. sugar industry contributed $7.2 million to political action committees and $5.7 million in soft money donations, for a total of $13 million�a bargain in exchange for protection worth hundreds of millions..."
("Big Sugar" is Lukas' expression)
Tariff-rate quotas are one of our key defenses against foreign sugar. These are described in detail by David Skully in the US Department of Agriculture report, "Economics of Tariff-Rate Quota Administration".
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