BOISE—A historic move for the United States to open trade with Cuba could impact Idaho, at least when it comes to sugarbeet exports.
While sugar cane is one of Cuba's biggest products, a lot of folks don't realize sugarbeets are one of Idaho's largest exports and opening up trade with Cuba could impact Idaho's exports.
You don't have to go far to realize sugar is everywhere.
And in Idaho sugar makes up a large portion of the $ 2 billion of the state's agriculture exports.
"You talk to sugar producers and they don't want to see sugar coming in here. They want to see every bit of our sugar used up before we start to import," said John Thompson with the Idaho Farm Bureau.
Thompson says sugarbeets are the only commodity not offered a government subsidy. So it's protected by what's called a tariff-rate quota.
"It requires companies that do business in the United States to buy sugar from the U.S. producers first up to a certain quota that's set every year," he said.
Which is good news for sugarbeet farmers if the U.S. opens trade with Cuba who could export sugar cheaper.
But Thompson says we still have better-quality sugar, and that's not all we have to offer.
U.S. Sen. Jim Risch says the trade agreement probably won't actually happen since he feels both Democrats and Republicans will put up a strong fight against President Obama on this issue.
"Congress is very unlikely to do this in a very bipartisan way since both Republicans and Democrats deeply oppose trading with that communist country," said Risch.
As far as Idaho agricultural exports go, Thompson says it's still too early to tell what could happen to the price if we do open up trade with Cuba.
Source: www.ktvb.com