Don’t Offshore Family Farms or American Food Production: American Sugar Producers File Section 301 Comments
A flood of subsidized foreign sugar imports entering above and beyond the quotas established by our trade agreements are putting American farms, factories, and our national food security at risk. The American Sugar Alliance (ASA), representing more than 11,000 sugarbeet and sugarcane family farmers and the 151,000 jobs associated with processing those crops into real American-made sugar, filed comments with the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) yesterday. ASA asked the U.S. government to use Section 301 authorities to address the unreasonable and discriminatory acts, policies, and practices of sugar-producing countries that have harmed U.S. sugar producers, refiners, and workers.
“Without containing this flood [of subsidized foreign sugar imports], the U.S. industry is facing catastrophe, with [loan] forfeitures likely starting within a matter of months and closures following,” ASA wrote in its comments.
The comments clearly outline how unreasonable and unfair foreign trade practices are contributing to an acute economic crisis in rural America.
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The over-quota tariff rate, which was set 26 years ago, has been undermined by inflation and is no longer an effective means to regulate the sale of over-quota foreign sugar in the United States.
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Increasing import volumes and decreasing prices are the consequences of unreasonable policies adopted by foreign governments that generate structural excess capacity and production.
- That excess foreign subsidized sugar has stolen U.S. market share in recent years, coming in above and beyond the quotas established by our trade agreements.
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Some countries have increased the amount of over-quota sugar imports by nearly 3,000% when comparing Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 and FY 2025 volumes.
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Those artificially and destructively cheap foreign sugar imports are simultaneously contributing to an oversupply of sugar in the U.S. market and crashing prices during a time of rising domestic production costs.
- In just the past 10 years, 14% of beet sugar processing facilities and 12% of 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).
“[F]oreign producers have historically saturated the world market resulting in extremely low prices because of market-distorting policies promoting excessive capacity and production. Meanwhile, on the domestic side, U.S. production costs are rising. As waves of foreign overproduction crash into the American market, U.S. producers are left to face a domestic market where prices are depressed below costs of production and very close to [loan] forfeiture levels under the U.S. sugar policy,” ASA wrote.
Foreign governments are cheating the system by subsidizing their own sugar producers to the tune of billions of dollars and then exploiting outdated and weakened U.S. sugar tariffs at the expense of American farmers, American workers, and American households.
American sugarbeet and sugarcane farmers have lost potential income over recent years due to suppressed prices and lost sales from highly subsidized foreign sugar. Over the past 2 years, excess imported sugar has resulted in as much as $2 billion in lost income for domestic sugar producers.
“If we do not quickly modernize the over-quota sugar tariffs to reflect the economic realities of today, it is likely we will see loan forfeitures. And if the economic losses continue without a solution, more American family farms and American factories will go out of business, leaving us dependent on foreign suppliers. We must not offshore our family farms or American food production,” said Dr. Rob Johansson, Director of Economics and Policy Analysis at ASA.
