TRADE

U.S., Canada End Beer War: Ending three years of wrangling, U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor and Canadian Trade Minister Thomas Hockin announced that they had solved a longstanding dispute over U.S. access to Canada’s beer market. The agreement averts an increase in U.S. duties on Canadian beer and should mean lower beer prices and higher sales for producers. Under the deal, U.S. brewers will be allowed to sell their product through Ontario’s private retail beer stores, Kantor said in a news release. The dispute has raged over Canada’s highly protected but lucrative beer market. U.S. brewers complain that the market is effectively a closed shop.