Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This is the story of how special interests twisted federal sugar policy to cost consumers $2.5 billion every year.
reason.com/2025/11/26/how-special-interests-twisted-federal-sugar-policy-to-cost-consumers-2-5-billion-every-year
0:00- Introduction
3:02- America's Sugar Rush
9:28- The Sugar Powerbroker
15:37- Conclusion
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With inflation on the rise again, it seems like everyone is looking for someone to blame for higher prices—from grocery stores to the current occupant of the White House.
And while the president doesn't have a big dial on his desk that raises and lowers the price of food or gas, there should be no doubt that government policy has a big influence on where your money goes. Take sugar, for example. Thanks to a series of tariffs and quotas that have been largely unchanged since the 1980s, sugar costs about twice as much in America as it does in most of the rest of the world—and that means anything made with sugar is more expensive as a result. It's a little-known federal policy that costs consumers more than $2.5 billion every year.
In fact, sugar is so expensive in America that it has largely been replaced by a totally different sweetener: high-fructose corn syrup.
That's a swap that didn't happen by accident. High-fructose corn syrup became a staple in Americans' diets because lobbyists for the corn industry pushed the federal government to shove sugar to the side. In doing so, they were the latest special interest to play a centuries-old game that mixes sugar and politics in a hot, sticky, and not too sweet mess—one that has altered the basic ingredients of some of the most popular products in the country.
Producer: Eric Boehm
Video editor: Regan McDaniel
Graphics: Adani Samat
Audio Production: Ian Keyser
This is the story of how special interests twisted federal sugar policy to cost consumers $2.5 billion every year.
reason.com/2025/11/26/how-special-interests-twisted-federal-sugar-policy-to-cost-consumers-2-5-billion-every-year
0:00- Introduction
3:02- America's Sugar Rush
9:28- The Sugar Powerbroker
15:37- Conclusion
---
With inflation on the rise again, it seems like everyone is looking for someone to blame for higher prices—from grocery stores to the current occupant of the White House.
And while the president doesn't have a big dial on his desk that raises and lowers the price of food or gas, there should be no doubt that government policy has a big influence on where your money goes. Take sugar, for example. Thanks to a series of tariffs and quotas that have been largely unchanged since the 1980s, sugar costs about twice as much in America as it does in most of the rest of the world—and that means anything made with sugar is more expensive as a result. It's a little-known federal policy that costs consumers more than $2.5 billion every year.
In fact, sugar is so expensive in America that it has largely been replaced by a totally different sweetener: high-fructose corn syrup.
That's a swap that didn't happen by accident. High-fructose corn syrup became a staple in Americans' diets because lobbyists for the corn industry pushed the federal government to shove sugar to the side. In doing so, they were the latest special interest to play a centuries-old game that mixes sugar and politics in a hot, sticky, and not too sweet mess—one that has altered the basic ingredients of some of the most popular products in the country.
Producer: Eric Boehm
Video editor: Regan McDaniel
Graphics: Adani Samat
Audio Production: Ian Keyser
