Rep. Kelly Calls for Opening of US Sugar Market in Trade Negotiations

Sends US Trade Representative bipartisan letter co-signed by 44 members of Congress

WASHINGTON — U.S. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) – a member of the House Ways and Means Committee – sent a letter today to Ambassador Michael Froman, the United States Trade Representative, formally requesting that he secures “a significant opening” of access to U.S. sugar markets in ongoing negotiations with member countries of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The bipartisan letter was co-authored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and is co-signed by 43 other members of the House of Representatives, including a total of 10 members of the Ways and Means Committee.

Statement by Rep. Kelly:

“Current sugar tariffs are hurting American consumers and businesses by keeping our sugar prices unfairly high and our sugar-using industries — and the countless jobs they support — at needless risk. Expanding our sugar market for our trading partners will bring sugar prices dramatically down for American families and factories while increasing supplies and boosting competition among American companies.”

Text of Rep. Kelly and Rep. Blumenauer’s letter to Ambassador Froman:

As Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations move towards completion, we write to urge you to reach a comprehensive agreement that includes commercially meaningful liberalization of the sugar trade among TPP member countries, thereby significantly expanding U.S. sugar imports to meet domestic demand.

American consumers and food companies face high domestic sugar prices and tight domestic sugar supplies.  At times, the U.S. domestic price for sugar has been double that of the world price, costing U.S. consumers and businesses an estimated $15 billion since 2008.  That is because U.S. demand for sugar far exceeds both domestic production and allowed foreign imports under our current and outmoded tariff-rate quotas.  In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that U.S. sugar imports will total 3.5 million metric tons from 2014-15, while the U.S. import need will increase to 4.5 million metric tons by 2025.  This shows a need, and the space, for additional sugar imports.  As a result, a significant opening of access to sugar increases competitiveness in the U.S. sugar market, improves efficiency, and reduces costs for consumers and businesses.

Furthermore, opening the U.S. sugar market for our TPP negotiating partners also encourages reciprocal market access for a wide range of exporters of U.S. goods and services, including export-oriented, globally competitive food companies, farmers, and ranchers, and advances the goal of a comprehensive trade agreement. 

American jobs depend on access to sugar.  The U.S. has lost more than 120,000 jobs in sugar-using industries over the last fifteen years according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and increasing U.S. access to sugar can help to reverse this trend of job losses.

Here is a snapshot of U.S. jobs that are put at risk by the lack of access to sugar.  Sugar-using businesses include manufacturers of bakery, confectionary, dairy, soft drink, and other food products made with nutritive sweeteners.   They include small and medium-size, family-owned businesses to multi-national companies with global brands, with manufacturing facilities in all fifty states.  Sugar-using businesses also support other industries: agriculture, retail, transportation and other industries rely in part on the sale of confections in order to flourish.

We thank you for your commitment to concluding an ambitious and balanced TPP that will boost the economy of the U.S. and its trading partners, and we ask you to include significantly improved market access for sugar as part of that agreement.  As always, we look forward to working with you on this and other important issues.

A copy of the letter can be viewed here.

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