US, Mexico near deal on sugar trade

The US socked Mexican sugar imports with steep anti-dumping duties Monday, but said a new agreement with Mexico City was in the works that would eliminate any such penalties on Mexican exporters. Two months after levying 17 percent anti-subsidy duties on imported sugar from Mexico, the Department of Commerce announced additional duties of up to 47 percent for dumping sugar into the US market. All told the duties pose a potentially huge blow to the $1.1 billion annual trade. But as it announced the newest penalties, the department said officials from the two countries had initialed a deal that, if finalized, would end probes into alleged trade violations by Mexican producers and remove the duties. "The suspension agreements initialed today will, if finalized, suspend the investigations, allowing Mexican sugar to continue to enter the US market without antidumping or countervailing duties. The agreements create mechanisms to ensure that unfairly traded imports of Mexican sugar do not cause injury to US sugar producers." To end the countervailing or anti-subsidy duties, the Mexican government agreed to quantitative export limits on sugar exports to the US, the department said. As for the dumping issue, Mexican producers and exporters agreed to accept a minimum price on sugar shipped to the United States...more