ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on US sugar policy and its implications for 12 Caribbean Basin sugar-producing countries currently assigned US import quotas. The sugar industry can be linked to migration directly through employment and indirectly through its impact on macroeconomic conditions in the sending societies. Sugar is a highly regulated commodity traditionally traded through preferential agreements that protect domestic producers and certain favored foreign producers. The Dominican government, with assistance from US Agency for International Development, has pursued crop diversification to lessen dependence on sugar, but much of the sugar acreage is not suitable for other crops. The Sugar Supply Stabilization Act would have lowered the nonrecourse loan rate from $.18 to $.12 a pound and increased import quotas. In mid-1989, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ruled that operation of the US sugar quota program violated international trading rules.
