Lemon Lawsuits

Sunkist Growers, the wholesome name you probably associate with that morning swig of orange juice, has stolen a page from the playbooks of its more traditionally protectionist agricultural brethren. 

Last month Sunkist filed an anti-dumping petition alleging that Argentine and Mexican producers are selling lemon juice in the U.S. market at “unfairly low prices.”  Heavens!  The petition alleges dumping margins in excess of 100 percent, which means that Sunkist believes the U.S. prices of lemon juice from Argentina and Mexico should be more than double what they are today. (Maybe the U.S. prices of U.S. lemon producers would be half as much if our restrictive immigration policies didn’t drive up the cost of labor at harvest time.)

In a carefully crafted petition designed to minimize damage to Sunkist’s public image, only lemon juice used as an ingredient in the production of other products (i.e., not concentrated lemon juice or lemonade purchased directly by consumers) is subject to the anti-dumping investigation. 

Sunkist notes in a press release that: “The anti-dumping duty, if assessed, will not result in increased prices to consumers.”  Obviously, that’s a lie.  What Sunkist really means is that consumers won’t be able to attribute to Sunkist’s litigation the higher prices they will have to pay for the dozens of everyday food items that contain lemon juice.  The prices of soda, fruit juice, ice cream, cake mix, seasonings, salad dressings, microwave dinners, frozen vegetables, hair coloring, candy, chewing gum, cough syrup, and many other items will be affected by any prospective anti-dumping duties. 

And, as has been the case in the sugar-using industries, lemon juice-consuming industries will have greater incentive to move their operations to Canada or Mexico or any number of other countries where the price of lemon juice is market-based.  Whenever the supply of upstream products is choked off by protectionist measures, jobs, revenues, and profits in downstream industries suffer.  And contrary to Sunkist’s feeble rationalization, consumers flip the bill.