Attention Economy


Monday, April 4, 2016

Oreo Cookies and Trade Protectionism – Another Excellent Example

USA Today has an interesting column:
“But the villains who have destroyed the jobs of American workers are Congress and the Department of Agriculture, not Nabisco and free trade. It is the very protectionist policies The Donald advocates to help American industry "win" again that caused the Oreo job losses he decries. Federal policy has long kept the U.S. price of sugar at double or triple that found in the world market. Food manufacturers such as Nabisco are hostage to a Byzantine combination of price supports and arbitrary import restrictions that make producing candy and other sweets far more expensive here than in Canada or Mexico.
Federal sugar policy costs consumers $3 billion a year in a failed effort to save the jobs of sugar growers even as the number of such farmers has declined by almost 50% in recent decades.”