Trade Liberalizing Impacts of NAFTA in Sugar: Global Implications

In 2008, the NAFTA provisions opened the U.S. market for sugar imports from Mexico. The FAPRI U.S. agriculture sector model and the Mexican agriculture sector model were utilized simultaneously to analyze the implications for agribusiness interests of free trade with Mexico in sugar. It was found that the dire predictions of U.S. producer interests would not materialize. The economic impacts were much less than had been predicted. It was found that even with free trade, U.S. and Mexican sugar prices do not move in lockstep