Proclamation 2085—Decreasing Rates of Duty on Sugar

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

Whereas under and by virtue of section 336 of title III, part II, of the act of Congress approved June 17, 1930 (46 Stat. 590, 701), entitled "AN ACT To provide revenue, to regulate commerce with foreign countries, to encourage the industries of the United States, to protect American labor, and for other purposes", the United States Tariff Commission has investigated the differences in costs of production of, and all other facts and conditions enumerated in said section with respect to, raw and refined sugar, molasses, and related articles, being wholly or in part the growth or product of the United States and of and with respect to like or similar articles wholly or in part the growth or product of the principal competing country;

Whereas in the course of said investigation a hearing was held, of which reasonable public notice was given and at which parties interested were given reasonable opportunity to be present, to produce evidence, and to be heard;

Whereas the Commission has reported to the President the results of said investigation and its findings with respect to such differences in costs of production;

Whereas the Commission has found it shown by said investigation that the principal competing country is Cuba, and that the duties expressly fixed by statute do not equalize the differences in the costs of production of the domestic articles and the like or similar foreign articles when produced in said principal competing country, and has specified in its report the decreases in the rates of duty expressly fixed by statute found by the Commission to be shown by said investigation to be necessary to equalize such differences; and

Whereas in the judgment of the President such rates of duty are shown by such investigation of the Tariff Commission to be necessary to equalize such differences in costs of production;

Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hereby approve and proclaim the following rates of duty found to be shown by said investigation to be necessary to equalize such differences in costs of production:

A decrease in the rate of duty expressly fixed in paragraph 501 title I of said act on sugars, tank bottoms, sirups of cane juice, melada, concentrated melada, concrete and concentrated molasses, testing by the polariscope not above seventy-five sugar degrees, and all mixtures containing sugar and water, testing by the polariscope above fifty sugar degrees and not above seventy-five sugar degrees, from 1.7125 cents per pound to 1.284375 cents per pound; and

A decrease in the rate of duty expressly fixed in paragraph 501 of title I of said act for each additional sugar degree shown by the polariscopic test, from three hundred and seventy-five ten-thousandths of 1 cent per pound additional, and fractions of a degree in proportion, to two hundred and eighty-one and one-fourth ten-thousandths of 1 cent per pound additional and fractions of a degree in proportion.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this ninth day of May in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and thirty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and fifty-eighth.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

By the President:
CORDELL HULL
Secretary of State.