Is Trump’s Coke cane sugar idea a sweetener for a party donor?

Trump’s interest in the contents of Coke appears to derive from a conversation he had with Jose Fanjul, a cane sugar magnate and Republican donor.

Donald Trump installed a “Diet Coke button” in the Oval Office to order the drink on demand. Picture: Getty

Kept behind a steel door in a vault beneath the city of Atlanta is one of the world’s most closely guarded secrets. But it appears even the recipe for Coca-Cola is not safe from President Trump.

Trump announced on Wednesday (local time) that the multibillion-dollar drinks company would switch from using high-fructose corn syrup to cane sugar for its soda in the United States. “It’s just better!” he said.

“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them - You’ll see. It’s just better!”

Donald Trump is reported to drink 12 cans a day. Pictre: AP

The company responded to the announcement with a statement expressing appreciation for Trump’s “enthusiasm for our iconic Coca-Cola”, but did not confirm the president’s claim. Coca-Cola sold in the US typically uses high-fructose corn syrup although some countries use cane sugar, including Mexico.

As a fan of Diet Coke, which uses the sweetener aspartame instead of sugar, Trump is reported to drink 12 cans a day. He even installed a “Diet Coke button” in the Oval Office to order the drink on demand.

Trump’s interest in the contents of the original Coca-Cola version appears to derive from a conversation he had with Jose Fanjul, a cane sugar magnate and Republican donor.

At Trump’s inauguration in January, James Quincey, the chief executive of Coca-Cola, presented the president with a special commemorative bottle of Diet Coke, luxuriously packaged in a custom box and branded with a sticker of the White House.

Donald Trump receiving the first ever Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle from the chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Company, James Quincey in January 2025.

According to the book 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf, Trump then pestered Quincey with questions about Coca-Cola’s use of corn syrup instead of cane sugar.

Quincey argued there was not enough cane sugar to supply the US market. Apparently unimpressed, Trump called Fanjul, a Florida businessman worth more than dollars 8 billion, put him on speaker phone and invited him to rebut Quincey’s claims.

Coca-Cola switched from cane sugar to cheaper corn syrup in 1985, which benefited hundreds of thousands of farmers in Midwestern states. The majority of states in the so-called Corn Belt - Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, Missouri and Wisconsin - voted for Trump in last year’s election.

Cane sugar is mostly imported to the US from tropical countries, including Brazil, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, although there is some cane sugar farming in Louisiana, Florida and Texas. Coca-Cola already offers a version with cane sugar in the US, known as “Mexican Coke”.

Coca-Cola defended the ingredient yesterday (Thursday) with a statement saying: “It’s safe; it has about the same number of calories per serving as table sugar and is metabolised in a similar way by your body.”

After Trump’s announcement, shares in US corn refining companies tumbled. Corn lobbyists warned the switch to using sugar would cost “thousands” of American jobs.

John Bode, the president 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.”

The Times