If Coca-Cola replaces high-fructose corn syrup with cane sugar in its US products, it would align its practices more closely with other countries, like Mexico and Australia. However, this change would not impact Trump’s preferred beverage, Diet Coke, which uses aspartame for a sugar-free option.
“I’ve been in discussions with Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke sold in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” Trump posted on his social media platform.
“I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them â You’ll see. It’s just better!”
An Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. spokesperson stated that the company values Trump’s interest and assured that further details on new product offerings would be announced soon.
Coca-Cola didn’t elaborate.
But the company has long indulged US fans of cane sugar by importing glass bottles of Mexican Coke to the US since 2005.
Returning to sugar in US production, meanwhile, might affect the nation’s corn farmers, whose yields are used in artificial sweeteners.
“Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar doesn’t make sense,” Corn Refiners Association President and CEO John Bode said in a statement.
“President Trump stands for American manufacturing jobs, American farmers, and reducing the trade deficit. 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.”
Trump himself is such a fan of Diet Coke that he had a red button installed on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office that he can press to have a White House butler bring one in for him.
Despite his fondness for Diet Coke, his relationship with the company hasn’t always been sweet.
In a series of posts in 2012, Trump suggested diet soda might be connected to weight gain before eventually writing, “The Coca Cola company is not happy with me â that’s okay, I’ll still keep drinking that garbage.”
A bottle of Diet Coke could be seen sitting next to his chair years later, at a G20 summit in 2017.
And The New York Times reported in 2018 that he was drinking a dozen Diet Cokes daily.
