What RFK Jr. Should Do To Battle High-Fructose Corn Syrup – OpEd

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By Benjamin Seevers

A Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) run by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will likely go after crony interests in the health bureaucracy. If RFK Jr. wants to “Make America Healthy Again,” then this would be a good start. However, not every change in the new administration is likely to be beneficial. For example, RFK Jr.—a lifelong progressive—will definitely not be afraid to use government intervention to achieve his policy objectives.

That said, there is hope that he will at least be open to eliminating government interventions if they are found to foster negative health outcomes. The policies governing the market for high-fructose corn syrup offer a clear opportunity in this regard.

RFK Jr. has called attention to corn syrup for causing childhood obesity before, so getting rid of this sugar substitute, which is commonly found in soft drinks, seems like something he wants to focus on. There are two ways that RFK Jr. can oppose corn syrup while also restoring the free market—by targeting corn subsidies and sugar import restrictions.

Corn Subsidies

First of all, corn subsidies can be decreased or abolished entirely. Corn growers earn about $2.2 billion in federal subsidies each year. Corn subsidies also consequently subsidize the production of high-fructose corn syrup, leading to an “overconsumption.” If these subsidies were eliminated, then cane sugar would be relatively more affordable to use in soft drinks and many other products. There would doubtlessly be a transition away from corn syrup and back into cane sugar.

Consistent defenders of the free market are enemies of all government subsidies, so this would be the perfect move for RFK Jr. and the Trump administration if they want to throw their libertarian-oriented supporters a bone. If they were to eliminate corn subsidies, they would not simply be encouraging the use of cane sugar over corn syrup; they would also be extending laissez-faire economic policy to the corn industry.

Of course, corn growers will not support this. The corn lobby is very politically active, so the effort to eliminate corn subsidies will not go unchallenged. For instance, the Corn Refiners Association—the organization that represents those who refine corn into corn syrup—donated $600,000 in 2024 to federal-level politicians and PACs. The National Corn Growers Association donated $250,000.

If the opposition by the corn lobby poses too much of a challenge, then RFK Jr. and the Trump administration can turn their sights on eliminating another policy: import restrictions on sugar.

Sugar Tariffs and Quotas

The United States has a long history of regulating sugar, and the various tariffs and quotas imposed today have their origin in policies that were put in place decades ago. In 1981, Ronald Reagan instituted import tariffs on sugar. He later instituted import quotas in 1983. This is all in light of the Agriculture and Food Act of 1981, which implemented price supports on sugar.

Tariffs and quotas limit the foreign importation of sugar and have the indirect effect of incentivizing corn syrup production and consumption. Why? Taxing sugar imports leads to the price of sugar increasing because there is less access to cheaper, foreign-produced sugar. When the price of a good increases, the demand for its substitutes also increases as people seek alternative ways to satisfy their preferences at a lower price. Such substitutes, like corn syrup, consequently see higher consumption rates.

Today, as a Cato report states:

Any sugar imported beyond the quota amount, meanwhile, is subject to a tariff of 15.36 cents per pound for raw cane sugar and 16.21 cents per pound for refined sugar. To put this in context, the world price of refined sugar in 2017 generally fluctuated between 17 cents and 25 cents per pound.

This may seem small, but it is actually quite significant. For example, Kraft Foods shut down plants in the US in order to avoid the burden of tariffs. A more relevant consequence is the response of Coca-Cola and Pepsi, who announced in 1984 that they would shift to corn syrup in response to the high sugar costs.

It is clear that these policies should be abolished if we are to crack down on corn syrup and have a free market in sugar.

Which Way, RFK?

Eliminating or decreasing corn subsidies and sugar tariffs and quotas would be a good start for RFK Jr. and the Trump administration. Unfortunately, it may be politically impossible to accomplish these goals. The beneficiaries of the corn subsidies and sugar tariffs are large, highly organized companies that can afford to fight any political effort to overturn these policies. Those who are harmed—consumers—are dispersed and disorganized. It is much more costly to fight these measures; therefore, bad policies persist.

Of course, if RFK Jr. is really reform-minded, then he could perhaps pick up some of the slack of dispersed costs. He could be a vocal and powerful antagonist to these industries that support policies that benefit themselves at the expense of others.

However, even if change is politically impossible, we must understand the interventionist roots of the problems we face. If not, we are doomed to the vicious cycle wherein government intervention steps in to solve the problems caused by government interventions. As Ludwig von Mises states:

Popular opinion ascribes all these evils to the capitalistic system. As a remedy for the undesirable effects of interventionism they ask for still more interventionism. They blame capitalism for the effects of the actions of governments which pursue an anti-capitalistic policy.

All of this should be kept in mind over the next four years as the Trump administration attempts to make economic reforms. There are opportunities for rooting out interventionism, but this will not happen until we recognize government intervention as the cause of our economic problems rather than the solution. Neither RFK Jr. nor Trump has internalized this lesson, but let’s hope they can learn.

Maybe then conservatives and their fellow travelers can hold fast to the oft-cited Reagan quote:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?

  • About the author: Benjamin M. Seevers is an economics PhD student at West Virginia University and a contributor to the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).
  • Source: This article was published at FEE

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