UK Brexit, questions from an American

[The Grand Nudger]

Sugar Beet is associated with Eastern Europe and is a joke if other sources are available.

In steps the EU and imposes tarrifs and import restrictions on non-EU produce whilst shoveling grants and benefits onto EU farmers.

Result; Jamaican sugar cane is no longer imported, Sugar beet is taking up a huge slice of valuable farmland in Norfolk for one of the largest sugar companies (Silver Spoon) and other sugar companies (eg. Tate & Lyle) have to import Sugar Cane from French colonies (eg. Guadeloupe, Reunion) as these are counted as being EU territory.

Semi off-topic, but if the EU wasn't so terrified of GMO those sugar beets would be crushing it.  We here in the US source the majority of our sugar from the GTSSE BNYVV/BCLV cultivar that was developed for your(EU) use.  Those taxes, tariffs, and restrictions you were mentioning cut into the bottom line, and a few years back a bunch of producers were -mistakenly- shut down because EU officials -thought- they were unprofitable.  Turns out they were wrong in their assessment and it cost the EU billions...but most likely it was just a form of backhanded trade protectionism. Mind you, they weren't even using the gmo cultivar (because it wasn't authorized until 2014 despite there being no way to identify where sugar came from after processing), then...but the writing was on the wall. Cane and palm import/exporters can't compete with gmo sugarbeets, the only way to maintain the status quo is to smother the competing model in it's crib, before they assume best current practices.