• Sugar Among Most Distorted Markets

    Virtually all sugar-producing countries offer government subsidies, market protections, or trade restrictions for their sugar sectors, making sugar one of the most distorted global commodity markets. Those policies fuel overproduction. Then, instead of allowing their own markets to be flooded with cheap sugar – harming their own farmers – those countries dump excess sugar on the global market. That drives world sugar prices down below what it costs to produce that sugar in the first place. Foreign countries still charge a higher price for sugar sold in their own market!

  • Bitter Sugar Subsidies

    Approximately 70% of the world’s sugar exports are from just three countries – Brazil, India, and Thailand – each of which heavily subsidize their own sugar producers which helps drive global prices below the cost of production. For example, one study found that “the immense power of Brazil’s sugar industry is founded upon many years of strong government intervention.” India is the world’s 2nd leading sugar producer and it maintains some of the world’s most aggressive sugar subsidies, with a U.S. government report finding that India subsidized its industry by $17.6 billion in 2022.

  • Tracking Government Intervention

    ASA compiles a yearly report on country-by-country sugar government intervention developments using USDA Foreign Agricultural Service’s reports. See Yearly Report of Government Intervention.

  • American Producers Depend on Strong Trade Rules

    The American Sugar Alliance commends the Trump Administration for maintaining strong, enforceable trade rules. American sugarbeet and sugarcane farmers and workers, are among the most efficient in the world while meeting some of the highest labor, environmental, and food safety standards, are forced to compete in a global system distorted by subsidies and state intervention that suppress prices and undermine competition.

  • America 3rd Largest Importer

    America imports more sugar than most other countries. Existing trade deals provide preferential access to 41 countries. 

“There’s billions of dollars in foreign subsidies to sugar industries in Brazil and Thailand and other countries. They dump the excess on the world sugar market which depresses that market to about half of what the cost of production is.”

“[Without sugar policy,] we would effectively outsource our sugar supply to heavily-subsidized and unreliable foreign sugar suppliers whose environmental and labor standards simply do not measure up to our own. That would be the opposite of strengthening supply chains and contrary to providing a safety net to American producers. Under that scenario, farmers, consumers, and taxpayers would all lose.”

Explore the map below to learn more about some of the world’s largest sugar producers and the ways they support their own domestic industries, either to tilt the global playing field or to ensure their domestic sugar producers have a fair opportunity to compete.

Click on a country for more information.