Officials from one of the nation’s largest raw sugar producers recently visited 20 Congressional offices to update lawmakers and staff about Mexico dumping heavily subsidized sugar on the U.S. market.
“We felt like too many people were incorrectly viewing this as a market access negotiation,” Sean Brashear, President & CEO of Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, Inc., said about current talks to bring Mexico into compliance with U.S. trade law.
“This is not a trade negotiation,” he explained. “This is a law enforcement issue. The U.S. government ruled that Mexico broke U.S. trade law and must be held accountable.”
Brashear joined board Chairman Leonard Simmons, who is also a sugar farmer, to remind lawmakers that ongoing meetings between the Trump administration and Mexico are not discussions of innocence or guilt in sugar trade.
“Mexico was found guilty in a legal proceeding of using unfair trade practices. The trial is over. We are now in the sentencing phase,” Brashear said. “And a lot of people’s livelihoods are hanging in the balance.”
The cooperative he heads harvests, hauls, processes, markets and sells raw sugar for 112 farmers in south Texas. It employs 500 workers and makes enough electricity from sugar byproducts at peak efficiency to power the nearby town of Santa Rosa.
Beyond the farmers, the cooperative also does business with 1,800 vendors – making its economic footprint critical to the economy in south Texas.
Source: sugaralliance.org