Florida citrus growers oppose making unprecedented concessions to Brazil on sugar, citrus and steel [editorial, Nov. 1]. Offering concessions on citrus in order to move forward with the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) would be devastating to the Florida citrus industry.
• Brazil owns the world citrus market outside the United States because of its lower social, regulatory, labor and environmental costs.
• Brazil's comparative advantage is in wages, not efficiency. Harvesters in Florida earn each day what Brazilian workers are paid per week. Lowering agricultural tariffs is a statement that practices illegal here are fine elsewhere, in effect subsidizing reprehensible behavior in other countries.
• The Brazilian currency devaluation already effectively has lowered the U.S. tariff by 50 percent.
• Any further tariff reduction not only hurts U.S. producers, but also hurts Mexican and Caribbean Basin Initiative producers.
• Brazilian imports already have damaged the Florida citrus industry.
Citrus futures prices for the past two years have been below the cost of production. Lowering or losing the tariff will put Florida citrus producers out of business.
• Absent U.S. tariffs, two Brazilian citrus families would control almost the entire citrus market.
• The editorial termed a tax on imported Brazilian orange juice "discriminatory" when in fact all Florida orange growers pay an identical tax, and the proceeds are used for advertising orange juice.
We support free trade and increased access to markets, but U.S. jobs and ideals must not be plundered in order to blindly follow a vision of regional hemispheric free trade.
ROBERT BUKER
President
Southern Gardens Citrus
Clewiston, Fla.
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