Donald Trump says Coca-Cola will use cane sugar in US production of Coke
said
Coca-Cola
had agreed to sweeten its signature soft drink with cane sugar in the US, in what could represent a big shift from its decades-long use of high fructose corn syrup.
In a social media post on Wednesday, the US president said he had been speaking to Coca-Cola about 'using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the US, and they have agreed to do so'. He hailed it as a 'good move' by the Atlanta-based company, adding: 'You'll see. It's just better.'
Coca-Cola already uses cane sugar in Coke distributed in the European Union, including in Ireland.
Mr Trump's unexpected announcement inserted the White House into a long-running debate about the effects on health of different types of sugar – and has the potential to delight or alienate farmers in regions of the country where he has strong support.
READ MORE
Neither Mr Trump nor Coca-Cola addressed questions about the shift late on Wednesday, including how Coca-Cola would source the volumes of cane sugar it would need or whether any cane-based cola would replace or complement current drink ingredients.
Coca-Cola said: 'We appreciate President Trump's enthusiasm for our iconic Coca-Cola brand. More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon.'
While Coke's plans remained vague, Mr Trump's statement rippled through the beverage industry. Rival soft-drink maker PepsiCo was asked about it in an earnings call on Thursday morning.
'We're following the consumer,' Ramon Laguarta, Pepsi's chief executive, told analysts. 'If the consumer is telling us that they prefer products that have sugar and they prefer products that have natural ingredients, we will give the consumer products that have sugar and have natural ingredients.'
US-produced Coca-Cola uses high fructose corn syrup, a highly processed sweetener whose effects on health in comparison with other forms of added sugars has long been a source of controversy.
High fructose corn syrup is derived from corn, whose base of production is in midwestern farm states such as Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska in rural counties that largely voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
US sugar cane is principally grown in the warm Gulf Coast states of Florida and Louisiana, while additional cane sugar is imported under a tariff quota system.
Shares of Archer Daniels Midland and Ingredion, two of the largest publicly traded corn processors, respectively plunged 6.3 per cent and 8.9 per cent in after-hours trading on Wednesday, but had pared most of their losses after Wall Street reopened on Thursday. Coke shares were up 0.8 per cent.
John Bode, chief executive of the Corn Refiners Association, said: 'Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar would cost thousands of American food manufacturing jobs, depress farm income and boost imports of foreign sugar, all with no nutritional benefit.'
Coke's bottlers used cane sugar in US production until the 1980s and continue to use it in most foreign production, including in Mexico, which has resulted in so-called Mexican Coke being favoured by some US consumers. Its special Kosher for Passover variation, known for its yellow tops, is also coveted by some consumers because it too uses sugar rather than corn syrup.
In a social media post, Coca-Cola said corn syrup was safe and had roughly the same calories as table sugar. 'The name sounds complex, but high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) – which we use to sweeten some of our beverages – is actually just a sweetener made from corn.'
Mr Trump's announcement comes as his health secretary Robert Kennedy Jnr pursues a broader crackdown on highly processed foods. Earlier this week, the White House announced dozens of ice cream companies, representing more than 90 per cent of the ice cream volume sold in the US, had pledged to stop using certified artificial colours in their frozen dairy products.
While Mr Kennedy has attacked high fructose corn syrup, he has also taken an aggressive line against sugar in general. At an event earlier this year, he declared 'sugar is poison', not qualifying whether it came from corn, cane or another crop. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Donald Trump could be swallowed up by an Epstein conspiracy he helped create
Like others before him, Donald Trump has learned that there's really just no arguing with people who believe the world is run by cannibalistic, child-sacrificing paedophiles. It is ironic that Trump – who himself rose to power and has governed through use of conspiracy theories, including 'birther' lies about where Barack Obama was born – is coming face to face with a conspiracy culture he helped cultivate. Earlier this month, Trump's Department of Justice announced that disgraced financier and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein did not keep a client list of co-conspirators , undermining one of the foundational myths that has supported Trump's presidency. This has enraged the president's Make America Great Again base and might signal a moment of fracture for the movement. Conspiracy theories about Epstein are based on the belief that he kept a list of hugely powerful people who had engaged in sex with women and underage girls that he trafficked. This group of individuals, so the conspiracy goes, orchestrated his death in custody in August 2019 to conceal their identities. To many in Trump's Magaverse, Epstein was a key to understanding how deeply corrupt and perverse the world's elites truly are. The 'Epstein files', as they exist in the fevered imaginations of Maga diehards, include a list of names of those who must be exposed. READ MORE These narratives share their DNA with QAnon , the all-consuming conspiracy theory that first originated online in 2017 and claimed Trump was secretly fighting the 'deep state': a Satanic cabal of (primarily Democrat) paedophiles running the US government. From fringe sites, QAnon metastasised across the web, pulling in millions who likened Trump to a messianic saviour. QAnon signs began to appear at Trump rallies and supporters evolved into a highly radicalised core of his base. [ Epstein files are a new crisis for Donald Trump, as supporters blowtorch their Maga caps Opens in new window ] QAnon was one of the first mega-conspiracies to mature entirely in the internet age. Communities were formed on Reddit, documentaries went viral on YouTube and pro-Trump groups on Facebook became incubators for new threads in the conspiracy web. At the centre of it all was the narrative that the entire US government was hiding the truth from the people and holding the country back. In July 2019, after Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking. QAnon discussions skyrocketed: research from my colleagues in the Institute for Strategic Dialogue documented how, throughout July and August, when Epstein died, he ranked only second to Trump in mentions within QAnon communities on the web. Trump and Epstein were very close in the past, with the president once calling him a 'terrific guy' in one interview. More recently, Trump has been careful to distance himself from claims about Epstein. Yet, ever the opportunist, at times he has indulged some narratives. In 2019, Trump shared a tweet that claimed Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in Epstein's death. In 2024, when Trump was asked about Epstein's 'list of clients' during a podcast interview, he said he'd have 'no problem' releasing it. QAnon faithful pointed to Bill Clinton's journey on Epstein's jet, dubbed the Lolita Express, Epstein's donations sent to Democrat politician Chuck Schumer and lists of celebrities who allegedly visited Epstein's Caribbean island. [ Trump's name on 2003 birthday letter to Epstein, Wall Street Journal reports Opens in new window ] Over time, as QAnon's prophetic day of reckoning never arrived, energy shifted towards calls to reveal all in Epstein's supposed client list. In the words of conservative writer David French , 'on the right, the Epstein story became the thinking man's version of the QAnon conspiracy theory'. This was red meat for Trump-aligned media and politicians courting audiences from his supporters. Before Trump picked him as director of the FBI, Kash Patel told one Maga podcaster that members of Congress should 'put on your big-boy pants and let us know who the paedophiles are'. Before that, he claimed Epstein's 'black book' was 'under the direct control of the director of the FBI'. Dan Bongino, a pro-Trump podcaster turned deputy director of the FBI, built a career out of assertions that federal files on the Epstein investigation contained the answer to the 'deep state'. Pam Bondi, Trump's attorney general , told Fox News in February that the client list was 'sitting on my desk right now', firing up the wildest hopes of the Maga world. Each of these individuals leant on sensationalist narratives about Epstein's connections to elites, painting a picture of mass corruption about to be uncovered. They followed a blueprint designed by Trump on his path to power: embrace fringe theories, gesture vaguely towards cover-ups and make wild promises to reveal hidden truths. And then, when appointed, each was forced to row in behind the Department of Justice's announcement that Epstein did not keep a client list, and that no more files related to his sex-trafficking investigation would be made public. A predictable backlash followed. The Epstein files have become a purity test for Maga diehards and, unable to substantiate the claims they campaigned on for years, these political figures have found themselves cast as the villains they once promised to oust. Trump has tried to direct the anger of the madding crowd towards old foes in a series of posts on Truth Social; he claimed the 'Epstein hoax' was engineered by 'Obama, Crooked Hillary and criminals of the Biden administration'. Then, faced with growing Maga ire, he said the Justice Department should release all 'credible' information from its probe on Epstein. Whether or not the list exists, the files relating to the Epstein investigation have been used as cynical props by Trump and his acolytes to curry support with his base. The Maga right has used conspiracy theories as a political tool but they created a voter base that now demands ever more revelations, more exposures and more secrets unveiled. Now, when asked to peel back the curtain on one of the most persistent conspiracies he helped spread, the president baulks. In another recent post on Truth Social, Trump lamented that his administration is being criticised about 'a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein. For years, it's Epstein, over and over again'. Late on Thursday Trump said he had directed Pam Bondi to seek the release of the grand jury testimony relating to Epstein's sex-trafficking case, citing 'the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein'. As Trump is learning, conspiracy theories are elastic, self-sealing and practically impossible to disprove. This may be one storyline he's finally lost control of. Ciarán O'Connor is a researcher and journalist who focuses on extremism and technology
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Number of Irish seeking State help to avoid US deportation almost triples
There has been a significant rise in Irish people seeking assistance from the Department of Foreign Affairs after being threatened with deportation from the United States this year. The almost three-fold increase coincides with the election of Donald Trump as US president in January and the launch of a mass deportation campaign which aims to expel millions of undocumented people from the country every year. As of the end of June, at least 41 Irish people had sought formal assistance from the department or the Irish Embassy in Washington after being served with US deportation orders from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this year. In the whole of 2024, the final year of the Biden administration, there were just 15 such requests for assistance, according to figures provided by the department. READ MORE The department handled 36 assistance requests in total over deportation orders for all countries in 2024. The figures for 2025 are expected to continue to rise in the second half of the year. The Trump administration recently secured billions of dollars in extra funding for deportation operations and the US courts have largely rejected cases aimed at curtailing the campaign. The actual number of deportations of Irish citizens may be significantly higher, as these figures represent only those people who sought assistance from the embassy. Large numbers of people are likely to have accepted the deportation orders without challenge or without asking for consular help. There are an estimated 10,000 undocumented Irish people living in the United States. [ How Donald Trump is using fear, obscure laws and immigration agents to crack down on dissent Opens in new window ] It is understood Mr Trump's deportation campaign has put significant additional pressure on Irish officials in the United States tasked with assisting citizens. Many of the cases involve Irish people who have overstayed holiday visas. There is little Irish officials can do to intervene in these situations, sources said. There have also been multiple cases of long-term residents of the United States, with families and jobs there, being arrested by ICE officials before being detained in immigration facilities. This includes Cliona Ward, from Cork, a green-card holder who has been living legally in the United States for about 30 years. She was arrested earlier this year by immigration officials after returning home to California following a routine visit to Ireland. In her deportation order, officials cited a decades-old conviction for drugs possession and road-traffic offences, charges which were later expunged. She was released after five days' detention only to be rearrested by ICE officers and brought to Washington State. Ms Ward was shackled and chained and sent to an ICE detention centre, before being released by a court in Seattle. In another case, an Irish tourist spent about 100 days in an ICE detention facility after overstaying his 90-day visa by three days.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Q&A: What are the new online safety regulations that Big Tech is unhappy about – and will they work?
Coimisiún na Meán , the State's media regulatory body, is hoping to address unique issues posed to young people, and society at large, when it comes to online media consumption. 'The era of self-regulation in the tech sector is over,' they say, and propose the new Online Safety Code to affirm this. Set to come into effect this Monday, it's yet to be seen whether these new rules will have their desired outcome, although they have already ruffled the feathers of X , formerly Twitter, which launched High Court action on the State body's supposed 'regulatory overreach' . Q: What is the Online Safety Code? A: It's a lot to digest. The nearly 10,000-word document proposes various regulations on our online media consumption. It targets the service providers themselves – say, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X, for example – in the hope of holding them 'accountable for keeping their users, especially children, safe online', Coimisiún na Meán says. READ MORE It works off the back of laws passed by the Dáil in 2022 as well as the EU Digital Services Act and the EU Terrorist Content Online Regulation. Needless to say, it is vast in scope although, at times, sparse in detail. It uses words like 'audiovisual commercial communications' and 'indissociable user-generated content', which simply mean ads and comments under those ads. And super obvious acronyms like VSPS ('video sharing platform services'; think, any social media). Q: What problems does it hope to solve? A: Many. In three words: algorithms, influence and ads. The code makes particular reference to children's online safety, and wants to protect them from content that would negatively impact their physical, mental, and even moral development. As Coimisiún na Meán sees it, this is most easily achieved through imposing restrictions on access to 'adult-only video content, including pornography and gross or gratuitous violence'. They want to crack down on advertisements directed explicitly towards children, and even those that urge children to pester their parents to buy the product or service being advertised. This practice exploits 'the special trust children place in parents, teachers or other persons', according to the code. [ Women in Ireland increasingly subjected to online hate and misogyny, groups warn Opens in new window ] More broadly, it places the onus on the social media platform to protect their users from content that constitutes incitement to hatred or violence against a protected group, displays of criminal offences under EU law, encourages self-harm or suicide, or glorifies an eating disorder Q: And how will they do this? A: This is where things get a bit tricky. Coimisiún na Meán has put forward suggestions. However, the new regulations simply mandate that social media platforms implement their own measures to ensure child safety on their platforms. The code hones in on the use of effective age verification strategies to ensure minors cannot access adult content online. 'An age assurance measure based solely on self-declaration of age by users of the service shall not be an effective measure for the purposes of this section,' the code sets out clearly, meaning people will no longer be able to just tick a box saying they're over 18. This is a big change in the digital landscape, as previously you only had to say you were 18 to access over-18 content, never having to prove it. The code further asks social media platforms that allow adult content to be uploaded on their site to establish an 'easy-to-use, user-led content rating system'. This should allow for content to be flagged as adult-only and unsuitable for children, who otherwise could access the content on the site. It makes an interesting caveat that violent and distressing imagery can be uploaded to the sites, but only for the advancement of civic discourse in the public interest. They introduce a nuance that this be allowed only 'provided such content cannot ordinarily be seen by children'. [ Media regulator made 'big mistake' in not tackling algorithms in online safety code, Dáil hears Opens in new window ] Q: Will the new rules actually work? A: We don't know yet. With suggestions instead of mandates, it will rely on the innovation and willingness of big tech firms to comply with standards that most people believe to be necessary to keep kids safe online. Managing director of Data Compliance Europe Simon McGarr takes issue with a letter to The Irish Times written by Coimisiún na Meán executive chairperson Jeremy Godfrey in January. In it, he writes that it is up to social media platforms to choose how to enforce their rules, and 'uploading documents and/or a live selfie is one such technique, when accompanied by appropriate privacy protections'. Q: Why are the big tech firms unhappy? A: Comisiún na Meán is contesting a case lodged in the High Court by X, formerly Twitter, which says the new code amounts to 'regulatory overreach' on private companies from the State body. X says the requirements are 'broadly framed' and may threaten freedom of speech by banning content that is unsavoury but legal. It makes the point that current EU regulations draw a distinction between illegal content, such as incitement to hatred, and harmful content, such as encouragement of self-harm.
