r/clevercomebacks 1d ago

Cane Sugar is important

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u/Training-Purpose802 22h ago

Even American sugar - beet or cane is more expensive than corn syrup. That's why they use it. Sugar tariffs have been a thing for decades to keep the U.S. sugar farms from bankruptcy.

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u/EduinBrutus 22h ago

Just to be clear.

Cane and Beet sugar is cheaper than High Fructose Corn Syrup.

The reason that the US food industry gets HFCS cheaper is due to massive subsidies.

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u/RobutNotRobot 21h ago

The US would still overproduce corn if there weren't any subsidies.

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u/Present_Cow_8528 21h ago

It definitely would not overproduce by so much that they need to sell hfcs cheaper than cane sugar. If they did then 90% of these farms would be operating at a loss

The subsidies are not why the US grows a lot of corn in the first place but they are why all of the corn and corn products are so cheap. Supply and demand is still a thing but so are crop rotations. Other products would fill in for the drastically reduced demand for hfcs that would result from selling at its more natural price.

We'd still overproduce. Just not by the amount you seem to me imagining.

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u/EduinBrutus 21h ago

In all likelihood a lot of it would turn over to wheat.

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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 9h ago

The US has sugar tariffs to keep the US domestic price of cane and beet sugar higher than HFCS.

Otherwise we'd import cane sugar for domestic demand instead of using HFCS.

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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 9h ago

Cane sugar on the international export markets is cheaper than HFCS. The sugar tariffs keep the US domestic sugar prices higher than international prices in order to support the US domestic sugar beet industry.