Almost every country uses tariff imports, quotas and input subsidies to support sugar prices. This is especially the case in China, Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey, and Zimbabwe, according to a new report from Texas Tech University. | Photo by Michigan Sugar Co.
October 2, 2026
U.S. sugar stakeholders say foreign sugar-producing countries are taking advantage of government subsidies, market protections, or trade restrictions, distorting prices in the global sugar market.
According to a new report from Texas Tech University’s Dr. Darren Hudson and Shawn Wade, foreign countries’ market “intervention … remains extreme and widespread, with a wide variety of measures to support domestic sugar producers.”
This, in turn, has “distorted” global commodity markets, according to the American Sugar Alliance (ASA).
Hudson and Wade reported on 29 foreign countries, which account for more than 86% of global sugar production and 87% of exports.
“This report from Texas Tech’s International Center for Agricultural Competitiveness helps benchmark the extent to which the global sugar market is increasingly distorted due to subsidization and government intervention,” said Dr. Rob Johansson, director of economics and policy analysis at ASA.
“Our family farmers and manufacturing workers cannot fairly compete in a global market that rewards overproduction and leads to the dumping of surplus sugar. We hope that policymakers will soon take action to modernize U.S. trade policies so that American family farmers can compete on a re-leveled playing field.”
Earlier this year, U.S. sugar stakeholders led calls for trade investigations into why sugarbeet prices fell 26% and 13% over the last two years. Just in the last decade, 14% of the nation’s sugarbeet processing facilities and 12% of domestic cane sugar mills and refineries have closed, including the complete loss of sugarbeet farming in California (2025) and sugarcane farming in Hawaii (2016) and Texas (2024).
“Those prices (will) continue to fall as foreign nations that subsidize their own domestic industries are expected to dump near record amounts of sugar on the world market,” ASA said in July.
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Hudson and Wade’s report found almost every country uses tariff imports, quotas and input subsidies to support sugar prices. This is especially the case in China, Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey, and Zimbabwe, the authors noted.
Another policy mechanism to control sugar prices worldwide? Ethanol mandates.
“The proliferation of ethanol mandates has greatly increased the indirect price support of sugar worldwide where, unlike the United States, sugar is the primary feedstock for ethanol production,” wrote Hudson and Wade of Texas Tech’s International Center for Agricultural Competitiveness.
According to Theresa Sisung, manager of Michigan Farm Bureau’s Commodity and Regulatory Relations Department, some countries use sugarcane, sugarbeets or byproducts from processing beets or cane to produce ethanol instead of corn, which is the case in the U.S.
“By having ethanol mandates, it is encouraging people to grow these crops for ethanol production which also causes them to have more available for sugar production, leading to oversupply,” Sisung said.
Current U.S. sugar policy is a combination of import quotas and loans repaid with interest, allowing the country to maintain its status as the third-largest importer of sugar in the world.
A member of ASA, Michigan Sugar Co. produces roughly 1.3 billion pounds of sugar annually from sugarbeets. In August, the nation’s third-largest sugarbeet processor said the subsidization of sugar by other countries is creating an artificially low global sugar price that’s below the cost of production.
“America’s sugar farmers are the best in the world but cannot compete with the state treasuries of other nations,” a Michigan Sugar spokesperson told Michigan Farm News.
“These unfair foreign trade practices cost domestic sugar cane and sugarbeet farmers nearly $2 billion last year and they are anticipating similar losses this year. Losses of this magnitude are unsustainable and put domestic food manufacturing at risk, representing a clear and imminent threat to America’s food security.”
Read Hudson and Wade’s full report here.
