A major sugar industry group is urging the US Department of Agriculture to raise its standards for refined sugar imports, saying current requirements permit lower-grade products into the country.

The Sweetener Users Association said that many food companies require refined sugar of higher purity than the government currently mandates.

Sugar quality is measured by “polarity,” a technical gauge of purity. Most food manufacturers use sugar with a polarity between 99.8 and 99.9 degrees, but US import rules allow a minimum of only 99.5 degrees. Sugar with a polarity below 99.5 is considered raw …

Years of droughts in Mexico have already fractured its sugar exports to the US. Now President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs risk making the once-lucrative trade relationship even worse for America’s top foreign supplier of the commodity.

Trade agreements between the two nations were meant to create a reliable flow of affordable sugar to the US. But the system has unraveled, with more imports now coming from everywhere else. Shipments from Mexico are expected to fall to a 17-year low in 2025, leaving the Latin American nation with a smaller sliver of the market than it expected …

With five trucks and a tractor to his left and a sea of leafy green before him, Dean Haubenstricker lines up his harvester and starts it forward. The high-tech machine digs up brown sugar beets, lops off their tops, and conveys them to an onboard storage bin.

Mr. Haubenstricker’s son Josh arrives alongside with the tractor and a trailer, allowing his father to discharge his beets even as he continues to harvest, and then shuttles them to a waiting truck, which whisks them off to storage. It’s as elegant and efficient a harvest as one will see in American industrial agriculture. …