Coleman works to sweeten sugar deal

Patrick Springer

Grand Forks Herald

FARGO — Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., has been pushing to get the Bush administration to accept an agreement between sugar growers in the U.S. and Mexico to smooth the transition to the open market created by the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The Bush administration has been cool to the ideas, but Coleman said Thursday that at least the administration is talking to its Mexican counterparts about some of the issues in carrying out NAFTA.

The fact that Coleman has served as the point man for sugar growers — an important Red River Valley industry and constituency — on NAFTA implementation is one reflection of how the senator has been smoothing feathers he ruffled in 2005 when he voted for CAFTA, a Central American free trade pact that sugar growers vehemently opposed.

“Obviously for me, it’s a big industry,” Coleman said. “It’s one of the bedrocks of the economy of my state,” he added, citing studies estimating its economic impact at $2 billion.