04/20/05 Can sugar interests derail CAFTA?

Its pretty obvious how Congressman Mike Simpson and Butch Otter will vote on CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement. Otter says there's no way they can support an agreement that could gut the Idaho sugar industry. OTTER "The administration is not holding out anything to anybody. They're just stonewalling and saying were going to bring it up for a vote." Senator Mike Crapo says he wants to support agreements like CAFTA but only when they're properly negotiated. CRAPO "I've been very consistent with the administration that if they can't fix the problems that we have with it, not only with sugar producers but among many of our other commodity users in Idaho that I will vote against CAFTA." Otter says there's a growing movement on Capitol Hill to defeat CAFTA and he thinks the votes are there. OTTER "We don't expect any member of the Democrat party to vote for it. There will be some of the eastern state Republicans that won't vote for it and all we got to do is pick up all the Democrats plus 15 Republicans and we've got it stopped." The Bush administration especially through Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns insists that sugar producers have nothing to fear from CAFTA, that they will be protected from low price imported sugar. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott