President Trump claims Coca-Cola is making a major ingredient change—and the corn industry isn’t happy. On Truth Social, Trump said Coca-Cola executives agreed to “go Mexican” and replace high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) with cane sugar in its classic formula.
The Corn Refiners Association strongly opposes the move, as expressed by its president and CEO John Bode, who said the switch could cause widespread harm to agriculture and manufacturing.
“Replacing HFCS with cane sugar would be a devastating blow to thousands of manufacturing jobs in American agriculture, and it would depress farm prices, and it would add to our trade deficit because every bit of HFCS that is replaced with cane sugar would be imported cane sugar,” Bode said.
He pointed out that Trump’s own policy priorities on trade, farmers, and manufacturers would be undercut by such a change. Citing a North Dakota State University study, Bode warned of broader fallout for the grain sector.
“The immediate impact on corn prices, nationally, would be 15-to-34 cents per bushel, a devastating blow to American agriculture. And, once again, this tweet was talking about cane sugar, so there’s not any consolation for the beet growers,” he said.
Trump’s post follows the May release of a report by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, which tied HFCS to obesity and related health problems. However, The Washington Post reported that most scientists see little nutritional difference between cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.
It’s still unclear whether all U.S.-made Coca-Cola will make the switch, or if the change applies only to select product lines.
