Sugarcane

Unit 4 Project: Tariffs on Sugar Cane

MT220-01

Elimination of tariffs on sugar cane and subsidies on biofuels would be a waste of time and effort. We must learn from our mistakes and be able to be more self-sufficient and rely less on foreign nations for our fuel sources not just including oil but biofuels as well. The United States Net Imports for crude oil, and Petroleum was a whopping 49% from the Western Hemisphere (Brief, 2011, para 4). Brazil takes 32% with sugar can biofuels unlike its counter-part, corn based biofuels which is more established in the United States which as 43% of the biofuel market worldwide (Coyle, 2007, para 7). By keeping tariffs on sugar cane will help the Unites States be less reliant on foreign sources of energy overall.

The ethical stance would be Utilitarian approach in which there will more good to gain then bad by creating jobs, more environmental friendly, and less dependent on foreign forms of energy such as oil. The downside is the price of food has nearly doubles from $200 a ton in May, 2007 to $400 a ton in September, 2007 (Hill ,2011, Page 238, para 6).

By keeping the tariffs on sugar cane and subsidies, the major effects of using corn based biofuels would cause an increase in the price of foods that contain corn. An example of this is the price corn tortillas imported from the United States to Mexico has doubled since 2006 (Sauser, 2007, para 3)

The upside to free trade is innovation or fresh ideas, and productivity grows faster when other countries produce more goods and services which have a comparative advantage. Also cheap imports and keep prices low and limits inflation (BusinessWeek, 2000, para 1,2,3).

The downside would that Americans employees suffer pay cuts or has lost their jobs due to jobs going over sees no matter what type such as service or white collar (BusinessWeek, 2000, para 4,5,6).

References:

Energy in Brief (June 24, 2011) How dependent are we on foreign oil? Para 4....