Thanks Senator Sessions and Rep. Spencer for voting for CAFTA!!


http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdail ... tter.shtml


Bitter sweetener dispute with Mexico hurt Decatur plant


By Eric Fleischauer
DAILY Business Writer
eric@decaturdaily.com · 340-2435

A major factor in the decision to close the Cargill Inc. plant in Decatur was an ongoing trade dispute between Mexico and the United States, according to Cargill spokesman Bill Brady.

The dispute involved efforts by Mexico, since 1997, to protect its sugar-cane industry.

The World Trade Organization ruled in August that a Mexican tax designed to protect sugar producers against imports of inexpensive corn sweeteners violates trade laws.

Brady said that while the North American Free Trade Agreement opened the Mexican border for many products, the 20 percent Mexican tax on all carbonated drinks that included high-fructose corn syrup devastated the market for corn sweeteners.

"That effectively closed the border for our product in that country," Brady said. "That's a big market down there, and we were unable to serve that market."

Mexico imposed the 20 percent tax, which benefited its domestic cane-sugar industry, in January 2002.

The trade dispute over the tax has been bitter. Mexico first imposed duties on the sweetener in 1997. It removed those duties, but replaced them with the tax. In 2003, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican in Iowa, home of two of Cargill's sweetener plants, blasted Mexico for the tax.

"Based upon the promises of NAFTA, U.S. high-fructose corn syrup producers made major investments in the United States and Mexico," Grassley said on the Senate floor. "Mexico has now pulled the rug out from under them."

According to the Corn Refiners Association, the sweetener impasse with Mexico has resulted in more than $3 billion of lost high-fructose corn syrup sales since 1997.

The United States took the matter to the World Trade Organization in June 2004.

Mexico's cane-sugar industry employs 2.4 million. Unless it successfully appeals the WTO decision, Mexico must repeal the tax and pay penalties of up to $300 million.