As we celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday, we should remember that sugar tariffs imposed by Britain on the American colonies added to the frustration that fueled the American revolution. Molasses was smuggled in to avoid paying the tariffs. In 1789 the U.S. government used sugar tariffs as a source of federal funding. This nascent undertaking is the root of our domestic industry. Sugar trade, smuggling and tariffs have been an issue before the colonies became a nation. Over the centuries, some things simply never change.
Our primary focus this year has been to address the over-quota sugar problem. The lack of adequate tariff protection has oversupplied the market,
causing massive injury to our industry. The domestic sugar industry has lost an estimated $3 billion in revenue over the past two years because of this problem. The trade environment has been chaotic for the last 18 months, and navigating it has been an incredible challenge. Getting the attention of administration and congressional leaders to resolve our problem in a sea of economic, political and military problems in an election year is no small task.
Luther Markwart
For our part,
we continue to engage the administration in its Section 301 activities,
like we did for the Brazil investigation, this time under the Structural Excess Capacity and Production Manufacturing. We submitted comments asking the administration to include sugar given the unfair and predatory foreign trade practices that create the world dump market. We also testified at the hearing in May to reinforce our written testimony.
I have often said that Washington doesn’t address many problems until there is a crisis demanding immediate action. Only when our champions in Congress lock arms and take action do we achieve the attention this problem deserves. Our champions in Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Reps. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.) and Troy Carter (D-La.), with strong help from Reps. Brad Finstad (R-Minn.), Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.), and Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) lead a letter requesting the administration include sugar in and future section 301 action to increase tariffs.
The letter had a total of 112 members of Congress sign it including 22 senators and 90 members of the House. This is over 20% of the entire Congress. This was a HUGE show of support that we are very grateful for. We thank not only our champions and their staff who did so much work on this letter, but also all our friends on the Hill that cosigned the letter. Your beet sugar Washington reps were phenomenal in pushing for support.
With relentless persistence we push forward for action to be taken by the administration to add additional tariff coverage on unnecessary imports. July 24 marks the end of the Section 122 tariffs that were put in place when the
Supreme Court struck down the President’s use of IEEPA
for the previous tariff regime. We can’t envision a scenario where the president does not act to put in place additional tariffs after Section 122 has hit its statutory limit. Current theories contend that the Section 301 investigations on Brazil, excess manufacturing capacity, and forced labor are a pretext to implement tariffs under that authority. Time will tell.
The farm bill process also continues to march on. We’re grateful to Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Penn.) for his work successfully shepherding the bill across the House floor, a very difficult task. Senate activity is expected in June, both release of bill text and a markup of that bill in the Ag Committee. The bill would then hopefully move across the Senate floor and through conference. After that, it must be passed by both chambers a second time without being amended before arriving on the president’s desk. The president has signaled a desire to pass a farm bill, so between that and current momentum, a 2026 farm bill is within reach.
Our EPA efforts continue at full speed as well. The Fungicide Strategy, like the Herbicide, Rodenticide, and Insecticide strategies before it, impacts the way in which you can apply pesticides because of Endangered Species Act considerations. The Fungicide Strategy was released at the end of April. Our industry in Washington and your co-op’s ag departments all thoroughly scrutinized the proposal and provided very substantive comments in an attempt to make this strategy workable for sugarbeet growers across the country. We’ll continue to press our case at EPA in this space well past our federal comment submission.
Lastly, mark your calendars for the 2027 ASGA annual meeting that will be held at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort and Spa hotel from Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2027. More information can be found on the American Sugarbeet Growers Association website. It will be
my final annual meeting to attend,
and I look forward to enjoying the many friends and industry leaders I have worked with over the years.
Luther Markwart is the executive vice president of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association.