United States of America: Additional sugar import quota for remainder of Fiscal Year 2010
Description
In a Federal Register notice[1] published on May 11, 2010 and effective that same date, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) allocated additional sugar quotas for Fiscal Year 2010 (FY 2010) among the quota recipients Australia, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Swaziland, Thailand, and Zimbabwe.
This announcement was in turn based upon an earlier determination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), as published in the Federal Register on April 27, 2010,[2] in which the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation announced that the FY 2010 cane sector allotment and cane state allotments are larger than can be fulfilled by domestically produced cane sugar. The USDA therefore provided for an additional in-quota quantity of the FY 2010 tariff-rate quota (TRQ) for imported raw cane sugar for the remainder of FY 2010 (ending September 30, 2010) in the amount of 181,437 metric tones raw value.
It then fell to the USTR to allocate this additional amount among the countries that share in the U.S. sugar TRQ. The USTR made the specific allocations on the basis of consultations with quota holders and on the countries’ historical shipments to the United States. The USTR stressed in its own Federal Register notice, and also reported to the WTO,[3] that “This quantity is in addition to the minimum amount to which the United States is committed pursuant to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Uruguay Round Agreements” (i.e., 1,117,195 metric tons).
[1] Volume 75, Number 90, pages 26316-26317.
[2] Volume 75, Number 80, page 22095.
[3] Correspondence of May 31, 2010 from the Permanent Delegation of the United States to the WTO, as cited in WTO, Trade Policy Review Body, Report to the TPRB from the Director-General on Trade-Related Developments (WTO document WT/TPR/OV/W/3 of June 14, 2010), page 75.
Any Evidence-Based Deliberation:
| Question | Result |
|---|---|
| Is there anything in the public record to suggest that evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed measure was considered during official deliberations? | Don't know |
| Is there any evidence that alternatives to the proposed measure were considered? | Don't Know |
| Is there anything in the public record that suggests that empirical evidence informed the comparison across the alternatives available to government? | Don't Know |
| Was such evidence identified? | Don't Know |
| Is such evidence publicly available? | Don't Know |
| Did the official decision-maker in question provide an explanation as to why a chosen measure was favoured over alternatives? | Don't Know |
| Is there any evidence to suggest that potentially affected trading partners were consulted before the measures were taken? | Don't Know |
| Is there any evidence that safeguards have been put in place to ensure that implementation of the initiative is transparent and non-discriminatory? | Don't Know |
| Did the government state its intention to review the measure within one year of implementation? | Don't Know |
Date Discovered:
Implemented: Yes
Date of inception: 11 May 2010
GTA Evaluation: Green
Source:
See the hyperlinked materials in the description.
Government Response:
- 1116 reads
