Because American farmers cannot compete with foreign sugar growers, the federal government has maintained an array of sugar import quotas and/or tariffs for most of the last 200 years. The regulatory regime has provided windfalls for generations of politicians and jobs for legions of bureaucrats while destroying more than a hundred thousand private, productive jobs.

It's Getting Worse

The sugar regime is back in the news thanks to a squabble over Mexican sugar imports. Mexico is by far the largest sugar supplier to the U.S., exporting more sugar here than all other nations combined. This is a huge windfall for Mexico because U.S. prices are routinely double or triple the world sugar price.

NAFTA was never intended to result in free trade.

As part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico was granted special access to the U.S. market.