Tricked on Our Treats: Time to Rethink the U.S. Sugar Program

For decades, the U.S. government has restricted sugar imports through a system of quotas designed to keep domestic prices artificially high, even though foreign producers can grow and sell sugar at much lower prices. Domestic growers maintain that they need the quotas to protect them from "dumped" imports. Critics argue that the program increases costs for U.S. consumers and hurts domestic confectioners and other sugar-using industries. It also inhibits development abroad by walling off the U.S. market from farmers in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. In a recent letter, the National Foreign Trade Council and other trade organizations urged the Obama administration to consider relaxing the quotas in the face of high global prices and the threat of domestic shortages. Isn't it time to rethink the U.S. sugar program?