WASHINGTON - Today, Congressman Dale E. Kildee (D-MI) joined a bipartisan group of nearly two dozen House and Senate members, along with leaders of 23 business, trade, agricultural and labor groups to speak out against the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is scheduled for a hearing Thursday in the House Ways and Means Committee.  Kildee called specific attention to the trade agreement’s sugar provisions, which would cause our markets to be flooded with foreign subsidized sugar, jeopardizing family farms and jobs in Michigan and other sugar producing states across the country.

“The Bush Administration is jeopardizing the livelihoods of sugar producing families in Michigan and across this country by crafting harmful trade negotiations that would flood U.S. markets with foreign sugar,” said Kildee.  “With Congress set to debate this flawed trade deal, we need to remove the U.S. sugar industry from the negotiating table before hundreds of thousands of American jobs and family farms are lost.  I encourage my colleagues to stand firm against the President’s attempt to use U.S. sugar as a bargaining chip during this and future trade negotiations.”

Year after year, the Bush Administration has jeopardized the future of the U.S. sugar industry by establishing unfair Free Trade Agreements with Central American nations and other countries around the world.  The Bush Administration has continually failed to consult Congress before entering into Free Trade Agreements that could potentially flood U.S. sugar markets with foreign subsidized sugar priced below the cost of production.  Last Congress, Kildee was successful in leading an effort to remove sugar from the Australian Free Trade Agreement.

Kildee lauded the grassroots efforts of these groups, and the efforts of the U.S. sugar farming community in particular, to speak out against CAFTA.  “Without the vigorous opposition from these groups to speak out on the way CAFTA would undermine the U.S. sugar industry, this treaty likely would have been rammed through Congress shortly after its negotiation.”  CAFTA, which had its first hearing in the Senate last week, is expected to be considered by the full House of Representatives by Memorial Day.  It was negotiated over a year ago and ratified by the participating countries’ trade ministers on August 5, 2004.

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