Amanda Ciafone is associate professor of media and cinema studies and history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of “Counter-Cola: A Multinational History of the Global Corporation.”
When President Trump recently professed his preference for “REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States,” he may have been remembering the Cokes of his youth. More likely he was thinking of the taste of a “Mexican Coke,” the only version of Coca-Cola sweetened with real sugar, rather than high-fructose corn syrup, that is commercially available in the United States — and it’s imported from Mexico.
It was hard not to marvel at the irony. Border walls and tariffs must be high against Mexico, but the Cokes it exports to the United States get a pass. A product beloved by immigrants and cool kids alike, it is known for its real cane sugar and retro glass bottle. And it’s a product that, in its very sweetness, shows that taste is political — that what we consume is shaped by trade policies, subsidies, and the strength of our regulatory institutions.
Why are Mexican Cokes sweetened with sugar and US Cokes sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup? Because in the United States, high-fructose corn syrup is cheaper than sugar, thanks to a long history of corn subsidies and sugar tariffs. In my home state of Illinois, I live surrounded by fields growing corn not for eating but for processing — into ethanol, animal feed, and high-fructose corn syrup.
Outside this country, however, cane sugar is the default sweetener. That’s why Mexican Coke tastes different — some say it’s more authentically sweet. The soft drink has become a cult favorite, a symbol of nostalgia and purity in a market saturated with manufactured sweetness. It’s also a reminder of how deeply our food systems are shaped by policy decisions, not just taste.
This isn’t the first time Coca-Cola has been the subject of national discussion. In the early 20th century, the US government took Coca-Cola to court under the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 for “misbranding” and “adulteration.” At the time, the drink contained negligible amounts of both coca and kola (with their implied medicinal claims as stimulants) but significant amounts of caffeine. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1914, and the public scrutiny and legal pressure prompted the company to reduce the caffeine level by about half. But the bigger victory was the case’s role in galvanizing the movement for food and drug labeling and regulation. It was part of a broader Progressive Era push for consumer protections, one that eventually led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration and its evidence-based review, monitoring, and enforcement of standards for the safety and efficacy of what we eat, drink, and use for medications.
Fast forward to today and we’re in a very different moment. The Trump administration is working to gut and undermine many of the very institutions that protect our health. The National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and yes, the FDA, have all faced budget cuts, staff reductions, and political interference. The American Public Health Association has warned that these rollbacks threaten the health and safety of all Americans.
At this moment we may want to import something else from Mexico: leadership in public health. There, health advocates and regulators have developed education campaigns and public policy about sugar-sweetened beverages, including those Mexican Cokes, the products of a business model exported from the US, and their links to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. They’ve implemented soda taxes, required clearer nutrition labeling, restricted marketing to children, and banned the sale of sugary drinks in schools. They’ve treated the issue not as a matter of personal taste but of public health.
As a historian, I won’t weigh in on whether cane sugar is healthier than corn syrup. That’s a question for nutritionists and scientists. But I do know this: a president’s personal preferences are no substitute for robust public institutions. You can’t regulate a food system by tweet. You can’t protect consumers with nostalgia. You can’t set policy by piecemeal targeting of products based on particularistic agendas and transactional politics. And you certainly can’t build a healthier nation by dismantling the very agencies tasked with safeguarding it.
If we’re serious about health, we might take a page from Mexico. Because in the end, it’s not about which Coke tastes better. It’s about which country is doing more to protect its people from the consequences of unchecked sweetness and power.