The beloved Oreo is going to be manufactured in Mexico, and you can thank sugar tariffs designed to protect one industry over other industries.

“The manufacturer of Oreo cookies recently announced plans to move production of Oreos from Chicago to Mexico, resulting in a loss of 600 U.S. jobs.

“This should be a wake-up call to defenders of the U.S. sugar program and other job-destroying trade barriers.

“The leading ingredient in Oreos is sugar, and U.S. trade barriers currently require Americans to pay twice the average world prices for sugar.

“Sugar-using industries now have a big incentive to relocate from the United States to countries where access to their primary ingredient is not restricted.”

Liberals love to denounce evil corporations that move jobs oversees in order to save money. They do, and why shouldn’t they? As consumers, such moves keep prices down for all Americans.

Who’s to blame for moving companies out of the United States? Government. Why would a company want to spend millions of dollars to save a company if they could save those millions of dollars by staying in the United States?

High corporate taxes and burdensome regulations cost businesses money. In order to survive, they either have to raise prices or cut costs.

It’s no different when a company leaves a high-tax state and moves to a low-tax state.

Zoltan Merszei, who served as President and CEO of Dow Chemical Co. until his retirement in 1979, said “money is a coward. Money crosses national boundaries freely. Investment capital will not flow down a hazardous, unlit street where the risk is visibly higher than the potential reward. Money has no national loyalty. Like poker chips, money has no permanent home.”

If you are upset that Oreo manufacturing is moving to Mexico, blame Congress.

“According to a 2006 report from the government’s International Trade Administration: “Chicago, one of the largest U.S. cities for confectionery manufacturing, has lost nearly one-third of its SCP manufacturing jobs over the last 13 years. These losses are attributed, in part, to high U.S. sugar prices.”