U.S. Sugar Program
Unlike other commodity programs, the U.S. sugar program involves the federal government restricting imports to keep domestic prices high and mandating marketing allotments to restrict domestic production.
This unnecessary government intrusion has cost American consumers $2.4 billion – $4 billion per year and has contributed to the loss of more than 100,000 jobs in U.S. sugar-using industries since 1997. Rather than benefiting a few wealthy sugar processors, the U.S. sugar program should serve the interests of all stakeholders — from producers and processors to sugar-using industries and consumers.
Here’s what keeps the U.S. sugar program from benefitting all stakeholders:
- Price supports, which enforce a minimum price for sugar in the U.S. domestic market. This makes the domestic price higher than the world market price.
- Marketing allotments, which are aimed at preventing surplus supplies in the domestic market. Each beet and cane processor is under a government-imposed and legally binding limit on the amount of sugar it is permitted to sell each year.
- Import quotas (also called tariff-rate Quotas, or TRQs) set limits on how much sugar can be shipped to the United States every year from each of the 40 countries that exported sugar to the United States 44 years ago. Imports above this level are subject to an extremely high tariff.
- The Feedstock Flexibility Program, established in 2008, mandates that in times of surplus, the government must buy sugar and resell it to ethanol plants at a loss. This comes at the expense of taxpayers, who, as consumers, are already paying more for sugar than they should. NOTE: The program was used for the first time in fiscal year 2013. For more information, see the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) fact sheet here.
While the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act updated certain aspects of the U.S. sugar program, SUA continues to advocate for regulatory action to ensure a more resilient sugar supply chain. We urge USDA to follow recommendations from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to reevaluate its method for restricting sugar imports. If implemented, these recommendations would help lower costs for all stakeholders.
For more information on the need for a fairer and more efficient U.S. sugar program, visit the Alliance For Fair Sugar Policy at fairsugarpolicy.org.
