[Marxism] America's Sugar Daddies (NYT editorial)

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

INTRODUCTION TO NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL
by Walter Lippmann, Moderator, CubaNews

This New York Times editorial taking aim at the privileged
position of the sugar industry in the US focuses attention
on the famous Fanjul brothers, formerly of Cuba, presently
leading members of the right-wing exile leadership in
Florida and beyond.

The editorial reproduced below here gives us SOME insight
into one single example of the special rights, special
privileges and special position which Washington, and here
I mean both Democratic as well as Republican politicians,
have nurtured the wealthy rightist exile leaders for many
decades. While the Bush administration, and supporters of
both the Democrats and Republicans would deny that special
advantages are doled out to the people who contribute $$$
to the politicians, the reality is rather different.

The New York Times, just like the rest of the corporate
media which defend the private property (sometimes
misleadingly referred to as the "free enterprise" system,
is committed 100% to imposition of that system on Cuba and
the rest of the planet. Despite various omissions in this
editorial, it does help put a bit of reality, that is, a
material basis, underneath the US blockade of Cuba.

In Cuba an infinitely greater amount of time and effort
is spent studying and analyzing trends within the life
and politics of its unfriendly northern neighbor. Cuba
being so heavily impacted by the blockade, the island
must learn everything it can about trends within its
most powerful and hostile regional cohabitant. Sugar,
being one of the historic foundations of the Cuban
economy is one such area. Don't misconstrue the fact
that sugar has been downgraded from the top to a much
smaller part of the island's political economy. Sugar
is STILL quite important to Cuba.

Here is a link to just one article which appeared in
Granma a couple of years ago and which CubaNews list
sent out when it first appeared three years ago:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/514

A four-page long WORD-formatted analysis of the role
of Cuban exiled rightists in the sugar industry and
focusing on the Fanjuls was published in April 2000,
shortly before Elian Gonzalez was rescued from those
kidnappers in Miami. It can be downloaded and printed
from the CubaNews FILES section in the MIAMI CONNECTION
subfolder. It's also been widely reproduced through the
internet Here's the location for our formatted version:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/files/
=======================================================

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL
November 29, 2003
HARVESTING POVERTY
America's Sugar Daddies

Sugar growers in this country, long protected from global
competition, have had a great run at the expense of just
about everyone else - refineries, candy manufacturers,
other food companies, individual consumers and farmers in
the developing world. But now the nation's sugar program,
which guarantees a domestic price for raw sugar that can be
as much as three times the world price, needs to be
terminated. It has become far too costly to America's
global economic and strategic interests.

The less defensible a federal policy is on its merits, the
greater the likelihood that it generates (or originates
from) a great deal of cash in Washington, in the form of
campaign contributions. Sugar is a sweet case in point. The
Fanjul brothers, Florida's Cuban-American reigning sugar
barons who preside over Palm Beach's yacht-owning society,
were alone responsible for generating nearly $1 million in
soft-money donations during the 2000 election cycle.
Alfonso Fanjul, the chief executive of the
family-controlled Flo-Sun company, served as Bill Clinton's
Florida co-chairman in 1992 - and even merited a mention in
the impeachment-scandal Starr report, when Monica Lewinsky
testified that the president received a call from him
during one of their trysts. Meanwhile, brother Pepe is
equally energetic in backing Republicans, so all bases are
covered.

The Fanjuls harvest 180,000 acres in South Florida that
send polluted water into the Everglades. (A crucial part of
their business over the years has been to lobby not just
against liberalization of the sugar trade, but against
plans to have the sugar industry pay its fair share of the
ambitious $8 billion Everglades restoration project.) The
Fanjuls had been Cuba's leading sugar family for decades
before Fidel Castro's takeover. Crossing the Straits of
Florida, they bought land in the vicinity of Lake
Okeechobee, which feeds the Everglades, and imported
platoons of poorly paid Caribbean migrant workers. Their
business was aided by the embargo on Cuban sugar. The crop
is protected from other competition by an intricate system
of import quotas that dates back to 1981.

The government does not pay sugar producers income supports
as it does many other kinds of farmers. Instead, it
guarantees growers like the Fanjuls an inflated price by
restricting supply. Only about 15 percent of American sugar
is imported under the quota rules, and while the world
price is about 7 cents a pound, American businesses that
need sugar to make their products must pay close to 21
cents. Preserving this spread between domestic and world
sugar prices costs consumers an estimated $2 billion a
year, and nets the Fanjuls - who have been called the first
family of corporate welfare - tens of millions annually.
The sugar exporters who are able to sell to the United
States also benefit from those astronomical prices. The
Dominican Republic is the largest quota holder, and one of
the big plantation owners there is - surprise - the Fanjul
family.

The sugar situation hurts American businesses and
consumers, but its worst impact is on the poor countries
that try to compete in the global agricultural markets.
Their farmers might never be able to compete with corn or
wheat farmers in the United States, even if the playing
field were leveled. But they can grow cotton and sugar at
lower prices than we can, no matter how advanced our
technology. Our poorer trading partners bitterly resent the
way this country feels entitled to suspend market-driven
rules whenever it appears they will place American
producers at a disadvantage.

In fairness, the United States is not alone in distorting
the sugar trade, and the European Union's massively
subsidized exports of beet sugar make it the biggest
culprit. The American sugar lobby uses that fact as a
shield, arguing that the crop not be included in any
regional trade deals until distortions are addressed by all
countries at the World Trade Organization. But quotas are
set between trading partners, not on a global level. Right
now the United States is negotiating the creation of a
hemispheric free trade area that would benefit many United
States industries, including other agricultural sectors. It
is ridiculous for the sugar lobby to argue - as it does
vociferously - that sugar should not be included in the
agreement even though it is one of the few products that
some Latin American republics can hope to ship to the
American market.

So far the Bush administration has rightly rejected the
sugar lobby's push to keep the commodity off the table. The
danger, however, is that American trade negotiators might
still prove far too deferential to sugar industries when
hammering out the trade deals' specifics. For instance, any
move to phase in elimination of sugar quotas over a period
longer than a decade (as was done in the North American
Free Trade Agreement) would undermine any promise a trade
deal might hold for poor farmers in Latin America. The
strength of the protectionist sugar lobby in Washington -
which unites Southeastern cane growers and Midwestern beet
farmers - was apparent in the success of Senator Mary
Landrieu of Louisiana last year in bashing Nafta's modest
sugar provision during her re-election bid.

If the sugar trade were liberalized, world prices would
start creeping up and domestic prices would fall, which
would benefit both the developing world and the American
economy. The industry itself cites "alarming" studies that
if the United States imported an additional two million
metric tons - roughly the amount Central America exports -
domestic prices would be cut in half. But that is no
argument for opposing trade liberalization. That is an
argument for the handful of individuals who control the
sugar business in this country to start thinking about a
new line of work, and be grateful for the long run they
had.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company