1. Recent discussions of efforts to control world commodity trade include Goodwin, Geoffrey and Mayall, James, eds., A New International Commodity Regime (New York: St. Martin's, 1980)Google Scholar; Nappi, Carmine, Commodity Market Controls: A Historical Review (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1979)Google Scholar; Law, Alton, International Commodity Agreements: Setting, Performance, and Prospects (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1975)Google Scholar; Reynolds, Paul D., International Commodity Agreements and the Common Fund: A Legal and Financial Analysis (New YorkPraeger, 1978)Google Scholar; McNicol, David L., Commodity Agreements and Price Stabilization (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1978)Google Scholar; Behrman, Jere R., International Commodity Agreements: An Evaluation of the UNCTAD Integrated Commodity Program, NIEO Series no. 9 (Washington, D.C.: Overseas Development Council, 1977)Google Scholar; Rothstein, Robert L., Global Bargaining: UNCTAD and the Quest for a New International Economic Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; and Rangarajan, L. N., Commodity Conflict: The Political Economy of International Commodity Controls (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

2. This article is part of a broader study of the political economy of sugar. See Mahler, Vincent A., “Britain, the European Community and the Developing Commonwealth: Dependence, Interdependence, and the Political Economy of Sugar,” International Organization 35 (Summer 1981), pp. 467–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mahler, “The United States and the Third World: Dependence, Interdependence, and the Political Economy of Sugar,” in W. Ladd Hollist and F. LaMond Tullis, eds., The Political Economy of Global Agriculture (forthcoming).

3. Almost all sugar produced in the European Community is beet. The United States also produces substantial quantities of cane sugar, which is subject to the same subsidies and guarantees as beet.

4. It is usually conceded that during the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, beet sugar cost considerably more to produce than cane; see Thomas, Hugh, A History of the World (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 377. Precise cost comparisons are difficult to make because beet prices are almost universally subsidized while cane prices tend to be low partly because of competition from subsidized beet exportsGoogle Scholar. See Hagelberg, G. B., “Sugar,” in Payer, Cheryl, ed., Commodity Trade of the Third World (New York: Wiley, 1975)Google Scholar, for a good technical discussion of the sugar trade.

5. Generally, sugar exemplifies the differences between North and South in world trade. “Embedded liberalism,” the willingness of developed countries to “minimize socially disruptive domestic adjustment costs…that might accrue from international functional differentiation,” has indeed played an important part in limiting the extent to which free trade will be allowed to disrupt the domestic economies of developed countries; this is especially true for agricultural commodities. But—and this is a crucial difference—Third World producers have simply never had the resources to create a regime of “embedded liberalism” of their own. See Ruggie, John Gerard, “International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order,” International Organization 35 (Spring 1982), p. 399 and passimGoogle Scholar.

6. Good general historical overviews of international sugar agreements are offered in Nappi, Commodity Market Controls; Law, International Commodity Agreements, Cahn, Linda A., “National Power and International Regimes: United States Commodity Prices, 1930–1980” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1980)Google Scholar; van Meerhaeghe, M. A. G., International Economic Institutions, 2d ed. (New York: St. Martin's, 1971)Google Scholar; Rowe, J. F. W., Primary Commodities in International Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965)Google Scholar; and Grissa, Abdessatar, Structures of the International Sugar Market and Its Impact on Developing Countries (Paris: OECD Development Center, 1976)Google Scholar. Detailed discussions of prewar agreements are offered in Davis, Joseph S., “Experience under Intergovernmental Commodity Agreements, 1902–1945,” Journal of Political Economy 54 (06 1946), pp. 193–220CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stocking, George and Watkins, Myron W., Cartels in Action: Case Studies in International Diplomacy (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1946), pp. 14–55Google Scholar; and Wilk, Kurt, “The International Sugar Regime,” American Political Science Review 33 (10 1939), pp. 860–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Wilk, , “International Sugar Regime,” pp. 862–63Google Scholar; Davis, , “Experience,” pp. 202–3Google Scholar.

8. This period and the crash that followed are described in detail in Thomas, Hugh, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom (New York: Harper & Row, 1971)Google Scholar.

9. Brazil had briefly engaged in a unilateral policy of bulk purchasing and storage of coffee as early as 1907; see Law, , International Commodity Agreements, p. 38Google Scholar; and Nappi, , Commodity Market Controls, p. 32Google Scholar. A renewed Brazilian intervention policy was inaugurated in 1923 but failed in 1929, although for somewhat different reasons than the Cuban sugar initiatives; see Rowe, , Primary Commodities, pp. 124–25, 135–36Google Scholar.

10. See Stocking, and Watkins, , Cartels in Action, pp. 37–41Google Scholar; and Davis, , “Experience,” pp. 202–5Google Scholar.

11. Stocking, and Watkins, , Cartels in Action, p. 41Google Scholar.

12. In 1931, Britain had granted countries of the Commonwealth tariff preferences on imported sugar, which also restricted the free market, but Commonwealth producers were still tied to world market prices.

13. American oversight of Cuban domestic order had been formally recognized in the American-imposed Plan Amendment to the Cuban Constitution, which authorized American military intervention to ensure “the preservation of Cuban independence and the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property and individual liberty.” Article III, cited in Huberman, Leo and Sweezy, Paul M., Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1960), p. 15Google Scholar.

14. See Cahn, , “National Power,” p. 188Google Scholar.

15. Rowe, , Primary Commodities, pp. 174–76Google Scholar.

16. Moynagh, Michael, “The Negotiation of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, 1949–51,” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Political Studies 15 (06 1977), pp. 170–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. Gerber, David J., “The United States Sugar Program: A Study in the Direct Congressional Control of Imports,” Journal of Law and Economics 19 (04 1976), p. 112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. The enthusiastic new Cuban regime set a goal of a 10 million ton sugar harvest by 1970, an objective that was never met. An interesting discussion of Cuban sugar policy in this period is offered in Roca, Sergio, Cuban Economic Policy and Ideology: The Ten Million Ton Sugar Harvest, Professional Papers in International Studies, 02–044 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1976)Google Scholar.

19. Third World attitudes at this time must be reviewed in light of the general global commodity boom of the early 1970s. The high expectations of Third World countries would soon be raised by the OPEC price increases of late 1973 and capped by the next year's call for a New International Economic Order to redistribute global resources fundamentally. By the late 1970s, the dream that producers of other commodities would duplicate OPEC's success had, of course, been dashed.

20. This counts the Brussels Convention and the Chadbourne Plan. The 1977 agreement was the fifth accord officially called an International Sugar Agreement. Good discussions of the 1977 ISA are Tsadik, Tesfaye, “The International Sugar Market: Self-Sufficiency or Free Trade?” Journal of World Trade Law 16 (03–04 1982), pp. 133–51Google Scholar; Khan, Kabir-ur-Rahman, “The International Sugar Agreement, 1977: Market Regulator and Instrument of International Policy,” Food Policy 3 (05 1978), pp. 104–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wassermann, Ursula, “The International Sugar Agreement” Journal of World Trade Law 12 (01–02 1978), pp. 83–85Google Scholar; and Schnittker Associates, The International Sugar Agreement: Its Provisions and Prospects, Report prepared for the U.S. Cane Sugar Refiners' Association (Washington, D.C., 1978)Google Scholar.

21. Actually, the International Sugar Organization was allowed to suspend quotas when prices were between 14 and 15 cents per pound and was required to suspend them when prices exceeded 15 cents per pound. For countries that relied on free-market exports for less than 60% of their production a further 2.5% reduction was authorized, resulting in a total potential quota reduction for these countries of 17.5%. If prices fell below 11 cents per pound, ISA members were required to restrict imports from nonmembers to 55% of a base year's imports, although there were some exceptions to this restriction. See Khan, “International Sugar Agreement, 1977,” for a detailed discussion of ISA provisions.

22. Ibid., p. 112.

23. During the 1980 price increases, the ISA's price objectives were increased from 11–21 to 13–23 cents per pound. Quota and buffer stock trigger prices were adjusted accordingly.

24. There were some limits on Cuba's exempted preferential trade. For example, Cuban exports to non-COMECON communist countries were included in its free-market quota, and a limit (although a generous one of 500,000 metric tons) was placed on sugar exports of the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic (largely reexports of Cuban sugar).

25. Australia's preferential trade with Britain under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement ended when Britain joined the European Community. Australia, a developed country, did not become a participant in the Sugar Protocol of the Lomé Convention as did most other CSA members.

26. The United States did maintain a 7 million ton import quota for foreign sugar in the mid 1970s, but this was considered meaningless since imports were only about 5 million tons. From 1977 on, the U.S. government instituted various temporary measures to support sugar prices at levels higher than the world market price, but unlike the U.S. Sugar Program, these did not apply to foreign suppliers.

27. This discussion of U.S. ratification of the ISA closely follows Mahler, “United States and the Third World.” Official Carter administration policy regarding the ISA is stated in Katz, Julius L., “International Sugar Agreement,” Department of State Bulletin, 09 1978, pp. 29–32Google Scholar.

28. Since 1980, U.S. sugar policy has to a large extent returned to the managed market of the pre-1974 period. The United States, after 7 years of makeshift arrangements, again instituted a comprehensive sugar support program as part of the Agriculture and Food Act of 1981. At first, the support price (about 17 cents per pound) was maintained by substantial tariffs and import fees on imported sugar, but by spring 1982, world prices had fallen so low that U.S. domestic prices could no longer be defended within the maximum authorization of existing trade law. On 5 May 1982, President Reagan issued a proclamation mandating emergency import quotas for sugar, to be distributed among existing U.S. suppliers. Although the new quota system was accompanied by a lifting of most tariff and import fees on imported sugar, the quotas were quite restrictive of the amount of imported sugar allowed to enter the American market. The result was further downward pressure on world market prices. A detailed summary of recent U.S. sugar policies is offered in Womach, Jasper, Agriculture: The U.S. Sugar Program, Congressional Research Service Mini Brief no. MB82239 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1983)Google Scholar.

29. For a good recent discussion of the impact of Community sugar policy on the world market, see Smith, Ian, “EEC Sugar Policy in an International Context,” Journal of World Trade Law 16 (03–04 1981), pp. 95–110Google Scholar.

30. See Mahler, “Britain,” for a discussion.

31. Good general discussions of the CAP are offered in Averyt, William F. Jr, Agropolitics in the European Community (New York: Praeger, 1977)Google Scholar; Marsh, John S. and Swanney, Pamela J., Agriculture and the European Community (London: Allen & Unwin, 1980)Google Scholar; Feld, Werner J., “Implementation of the European Community's Common Agricultural Policy: Expectations, Fears, Failures,” International Organization 33 (Summer 1979), pp. 335–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pearce, Joan, “The Common Agricultural Policy: The Accumulation of Special Interests,” in Wallace, Helen, Wallace, William, and Webb, Carole, eds., Policy Making in the European Community, 2d ed. (New York: Wiley, 1983)Google Scholar. The country quotas for sugar were not typical of CAP programs, but the other features of the CAP sugar program were.

32. Ethiopia and Liberia, countries that escaped European colonialism, were also included in the agreement.

33. This atmosphere of scarcity was reinforced by the fact that Jamaica and Guyana actually defaulted on CSA supply commitments at this time, despite the fact that suppliers had in the waning days of the CSA forced a renegotiation of price guarantees to nearly three times their previous level. Throughout the Lomé sugar negotiations, the Jamaicans played a key role in coordinating ACP policies and in insisting on an acceptable sugar arrangement as the price for any Lomé agreement at all. Sugar was an important trade product for the Jamaicans, but just as important was the symbolic importance of sugar as a long-standing example of much of what the Third World saw as unjust about its position in the world political economy, and the self-perceived role of the Jamaican government of Michael Manley as a leader in articulating the underdeveloped countries' cause. For detailed discussions of the negotiation of the Lomé Sugar Protocol, see Mahler, “Britain,” and Stevens, Chris and Webb, Carole, “The Political Economy of Sugar: A Window on the CAP,” in Wallace, Wallace, and Webb, Policy Making in the European Community, pp. 332–39Google Scholar.

34. Smith, , “EEC Sugar Policy,” p. 101Google Scholar.

35. Community net exports in 1981 of 4 million metric tons were second in the world to Cuba's 7 million metric tons. Total Community production, for both domestic consumption and exports, of about 15.4 million metric tons in 1981 was nearly twice the production of the world's next largest producer, Brazil, which totaled 8.7 million metric tons. In addition, the Community maintains standing stocks of about 2 million metric tons that hang over the world market and help to depress world prices. Part of the increase in Community production was the result of a rise in yield per hectare attributable to improvements in seeds and growing methods rather than increased acreage.

36. Hannah, A. C., “The Functions of the International Sugar Organisation,” The Courier no. 75 (09–10 1982), p. 68Google Scholar.

37. Cited in Smith, Ian, “GATT: EEC Sugar Export Refunds Dispute,” Journal of World Trade Law 15 (11–12 1981), p. 537Google Scholar.

38. European Community press release 448.421, 15 February 1980. Guyana is, of course, a beneficiary of preferential access to Community markets under the Lomé Sugar Protocol, but a substantial proportion of Guyana's (and other ACP countries') sugar is also traded on the free market: in 1981, for example, the Lomé quotas covered 34% of total sugar production in Fiji, 80% for Mauritius, 32% for Swaziland, 57% for Jamaica, 51% for Barbados. (Percentages are computed from figures reported in The Courier no. 58 [November–December 1979], pp. 91–92, and no. 75 [September–October 1982], p. 53). As a result, the benefits to Lomé recipients from their subsidized access to the Community market are often seriously undermined by the low world market prices that large European exports encourage.

39. Tsadik, , “International Sugar Market,” p. 161Google Scholar.

40. Smith, , “GATT,” p. 541Google Scholar. A quotas were frozen for every country except Italy, which received a slight increase, and Greece, which had just joined the Community. B quotas were decreased for a number of countries (particularly Italy, Ireland, and Britain), but this was partially compensated for by an increase in B quotas for such efficient producing areas as France and West Germany. Overall, the B quota fell only from 2.51 million metric tons in 1975 to 2.24 million metric tons under the 1981 regime, and total A and B quotas were 98.2% of those of the previous sugar regime. According to the new arrangements, the B quota can be reduced administratively if necessary, but not to below 10% of the A quota.

41. This export levy could range up to 30% in any one year, with an additional 7.5% payable if necessary in the following year.

42. Smith, , “GATT,” p. 541Google Scholar. The Australian government did not accept that the new sugar regime relieved the Community of the charge of violating Article XVI of the GATT, and it pursued its GATT complaint notwithstanding the new program. The International Confederation of Beetgrowers, the Community's leading beet sugar lobby, clearly did not agree; it resolved at its 1982 conference that “attacks made at GATT against the export policy for Community sugar are totally unjustified and should be denounced…. In fact, the system in operation in the Community only differs from those practised in most large exporting countries by its openness, which is not found in the systems of its attackers.” Cited in Perroud, Georges, “The Current Situation and Problems of Beet Growing in the EEC,” The Courier no. 75 (09–10 1982), p. 66Google Scholar.

43. Commission of the European Communities, Sugar, the European Community and the Lomé Convention, Europe Information: Development, DE19 (Brussels, 02 1983), p. 15Google Scholar; and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agriculture Circular, Sugar, FS-2–82 (Washington, D.C., 1982), p. 1Google Scholar. See also Licht's, F. O.International Sugar Report 115 (26 08 1983), p. 442Google Scholar.

44. The popular notion of the EC as the sole subverter of the ISA is surely exaggerated. For example, although the United States has been a member of the ISA since 1980 and has not technically violated its provisions, the Community argues with some justification that the United States has violated the spirit of the agreement and bears considerable responsibility for the dismal world sugar prices of recent years. One Community objection has been to the American imposition of import quotas for sugar in May 1982, which sharply limited the amount of foreign sugar allowed in the American market; the quotas represented an effort to support the domestic price without resort to direct government budget outlays. A broader objection has been to the dramatic recent expansion of corn/maize sweetener production in the United States, an expansion that most observers agree was possible only under the shield of high U.S. domestic sugar price supports; the Community sees the expansion of the U.S. corn sweetener industry as affecting the world sugar market in a manner similar to the growth of Community beet production. American cynics respond that the Community's real concern is with a recent influx of American corn gluten, an animal feed that is a by-product of corn sweetener production; corn gluten enters the Community tariff-free under a 1960s GATT concession that represents one of the few chinks in the protective Community tariff structure for agriculture products.

45. Western European sugar politics is a struggle not only between the Community and outside groups but also within the Community itself. One difference is between Directorate-General VI (Agriculture), which is to a large extent on the firing line from both proponents and opponents of CAP policies and is charged with the difficult task of formulating agricultural policies that are acceptable to farmers but nevertheless control costs, and Directorates-General I (External Relations) and VIII (Development), which are more concerned with the Community's international standing and the interests of the Third World. Another is between members, with France in particular insisting on a generous sugar program and other members more concerned with controlling Community budget expenditures. It is interesting that Britain, the archfoe of most CAP programs, is less disposed to attack the sugar regime. Under the CAP, the British Sugar Corporation, in which the British government until recently held an interest, has expanded British beet refining substantially and has been able to convince the government of its importance as an employer—over the strenuous objections of the major British refiner of imported cane sugar, Tate & Lyle. For an excellent detailed discussion of recent sugar politics in the Community, see Stevens and Webb, “Political Economy of Sugar.”

46. Finlayson, Jock A. and Zacher, Mark W., “The Politics of International Commodity Regulation: The Negotiation and Operation of the International Cocoa Agreements,” Third World Quarterly 5 (04 1983), p. 415CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47. Stubbs, Richard, “Negotiating and Operating UNCTAD's International Natural Rubber Agreement” (Revised version of a paper presented to the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Vancouver, B.C., 06 1983), pp. 30–31Google Scholar.

48. World Bank, The Outlook for Primary Commodities, World Bank Staff Commodity Working Paper no. 9 (Washington, D.C., 1983), p. 119Google Scholar.

49. Ibid., pp. 120–21.

50. In some cases, Third World countries have been able to circumvent these efforts at protection, but as protectionist measures become more sophisticated over time, this is less likely to continue. See, for a discussion, Yoffie, David B., “The Newly Industrialized Countries and the Political Economy of Protectionism,” International Studies Quarterly 25 (12 1981), pp. 569–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.