Trump Said Coke Will Use Cane Sugar Again. Why This Agricultural Stock Tumbled Instead.

President Donald Trump drinks a Diet Coke at Trump National Doral Golf Club. (Lynne Sladky/AP)

President Donald Trump said in a Wednesday social media post that Coca-Cola had agreed to use cane sugar in its beverages in the U.S. after he talked with the company.

Coca-Cola neither confirmed nor denied what Trump said. “We appreciate President Trump’s enthusiasm for our iconic Coca‑Cola brand,” the company said in a statement on its website, “More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca‑Cola product range will be shared soon.”

The company didn’t respond to a question on what the change in ingredients would mean for its production costs. The stock was up 0.9% in early Thursday trading.

Coca-Cola uses high‑fructose corn syrup as a sweetener in the U.S. market, where it replaced cane sugar in the 1980s. In many other countries, soda is still sweetened with cane sugar.

The Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again initiative, led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has asked food companies to remove highly processed ingredients, such as synthetic dyes, from the food supply. Many companies have announced plans to comply.

Kennedy also has been critical of the wide use of high‑fructose corn syrup in American foods and beverages, calling it a “poison” that’s contributing to America’s obesity and diabetes epidemic. He’s also criticized the artificially low prices for corn syrups, which benefit from agricultural subsidies.

A move back to sugar could be bad for corn producers that generate a big portion of their revenue from the syrup demand. Archer-Daniels-Midland, a leading processor and trader of agricultural commodities like corn, saw its stock tumble 5% in after market trading.

Write to Evie Liu at evie.liu@barrons.com