Given the frequency and ferocity of the Trump administration’s attacks on dairy supply management, one might think Canada was the only NAFTA country clinging to controversial agricultural protections.
Yet, if the perennial target for free trade advocates in Canada is milk, in the U.S. it is sugar: one of the most fiercely protected agricultural sectors both south of the border and around the world, analysts say.
“Sugar is the prime example of a highly protected industry in this country, no question,” said Alan Deardorff, professor of international economics at the University of Michigan. “We use all kinds of tools — all kinds of tools — to keep the price of sugar well above the world price.”
U.S. sugar producers received the third highest share of “trade distorting” government aid in the world between 2015 and 2017, behind only Vietnam and the Philippines, according to data compiled by Jared Greenville, senior agricultural policy analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
In absolute terms, only China provided more aid to its sugar farmers...
This has been excerpted from the 17 September 2018 edition of the Financial Post.