No Sugar, Sweetie

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

As a matter of personal preference, I don't shop at Walmart and haven't in years, but my oldest son, who lives with me, still goes there on occasion.  One of our dogs eats a special dog food that is only available at Walmart.  We have been home several days because the snow is still with us, though the roads are clear.  Yesterday my son got out, for the first time in several days, and went into town to get the dog's food.  We were also out of sugar, so Nick thought he would pick some of that up as well while he was there - but Walmart had no sugar.  It turns out that there is no sugar for sale in the entire town - something apparently to do with tariffs.

Last week we had a couple of days forewarning about the approaching big snowfall, and everyone rushed to the local stores to stock up on food.  By the time that push was over, many items were in short supply.  Most stores have now been re-stocked, but apparently sugar was one item that was not readily available with the grocery distributors.

I checked on the internet this morning, and the general news seems to be that there is no widespread shortage, but sugar prices have risen dramatically over recent months due to import tariffs - and there are "localized" shortages.  I guess West Plains, Missouri, is sitting in one of those localized sugar shortage areas.  Of particular interest in the sugar situation are the US import duties of 20% to 25% on the sugar coming from Mexico.

American sugar importers pay the import duties directly to the government, then they, like all profit-focused businesses, recoup that expense by passing the cost along to consumers.  And sugar is a major ingredient in the processing of foods, so not only do tariffs directly impact the cost of five-and-ten-pound bags of the sweet white stuff, they also impact the prices of all of the processed foods on the grocery shelves that use sugar as an ingredient - and that, unfortunately, is a lot of damned food.

When my son returned from Walmart yesterday, he explained the local sugar situation to me and went on to discuss tariffs, and though he has had no formal economics training, Nick has a solid understanding of how tariffs work - and he knows who ultimately pays them.  It's a damned shame that Donald John Trump doesn't have that same level of knowledge.