U.S., Mexico sign agreement ending trade dispute over sugar

WASHINGTON – The United States and Mexico signed an agreement Friday to resolve a trade dispute over sugar.

The deal, originally announced June 6, is intended to prevent Mexico from dumping cheap sugar into the U.S. market. Sugar producers and refiners welcomed the deal. But economists say it could raise prices for American sugar consumers.

American sugar refiners had complained that Mexico was exporting low-cost refined sugar to the United States and limiting exports of raw sugar to be refined in the United States. The agreement increases the price at which raw and refined sugar is sold to Mexican mills and reduces Mexico’s refined sugar exports to the United States. The U.S. agreed to suspend duties on Mexican sugar imports.

President Donald Trump last week tweeted that the pact was “a very good one for both Mexico and the U.S.”

The dispute might have broadened into a trade war with Mexico if it had not been resolved and if the U.S. had imposed duties on Mexican sugar imports. A nasty spat could have jeopardized plans to renegotiate NAFTA, the 23-year-old trade agreement involving the United States, Mexico and Canada.