When U.S. President Donald Trump’s import ban on Canadian molasses came into effect, some feared it could hit Canada’s sugar refiners hard.
Trade experts, however, say the ban will have almost no impact due to a giant loophole.
The key is the ban targets molasses “products of Canada”: it turns out almost all the molasses exported to the U.S. by Canada is made from imported sugar cane, and experts say the ban would only apply to molasses made from Canadian-grown sugar beets due to “rules of origin” trade standards.
“If there is an impact, it will be quite limited on both sides,” said Sylvain Charlebois, director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab. “It’s more about trying to make noise around geopolitics and barriers of entry more than anything.”
Trump’s molasses ban, which accompanied bans on Canadian alcohol and whey, follows lobbying by the American Sugar Alliance for industry protections from a “glut of low-priced imports from foreign countries.”
Some producers who rely on U.S. sales could be negatively hit, but sugar industry experts aren’t worried about the larger impact, as molasses made exclusively of Canadian materials accounts for only three per cent of the industry’s exports.
“The U.S. import ban on molasses affects certain ‘products of Canada,’ ” said a spokesperson from the Canadian Sugar Institute (CSI), a non-profit that represents key Canadian sugar producers. “The only molasses that is a ‘product of Canada’ is beet molasses produced as a byproduct of sugar beet processing.”
About $970,000 in beet molasses was exported from Canada in 2025, a small fraction of the nearly $21 million in cane molasses shipped to countries worldwide, according to the UN Comtrade database.
Don Hill, chairman of North American sugar refiner Sucro, said the ban is “not really relevant” for sugar producers because of the rules of origin.
It’s especially irrelevant for his company, he said, because it stopped exporting molasses to the U.S. months ago after opening a new, more efficient refinery in Hamilton’s port lands.
“Molasses is a very low value commodity and so it doesn’t travel well,” Hill said, adding that Sucro’s new refinery produced less molasses than its older factory. “You incur too much cost, so typically your preference would be to keep it as close to your main market as possible.”
The Star reached out to both the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection for comment but did not hear back by press time.
While the ban may not be effective in preventing Canadian molasses from pouring into the U.S., it could push American producers to change supply chains in other sectors in fear that depending on Canadian goods could cost more than buying local, said Charlebois.
“You’re basically discouraging the practice of buying from Canada, or any other country — and that’s the goal of the White House right now,” Charlebois said. He added that the sugar sector, in the big picture, is a smaller export compared to others hit by the import ban, like some alcohol and dairy products.
Still, some U.S. customs officers at Canada-U.S. border crossings could make things difficult by holding up shipments — regardless of international trade rules, warns Robert Glasgow, a lawyer specializing in trade for KPMG Law.
”(It’s) kind of like when you go to the border and get sent to secondary by the customs officers,” he said. The process can be costly, he said, in additional wages, storage costs, or even legal costs if appealing a seizure of goods.
Trump’s import ban is a “logical thing for him to do given his anger” over Canada’s counter-tariffs and alcohol boycott, said Drew Fagan, a professor of public policy at the University of Toronto.
It’s also not unexpected given protectionism within the U.S. sugar industry, he added, noting it isn’t unusual for industry lobbies to leverage trade politics to keep foreign competitors out.
“It’s a lovely example of how special interests can capture trade policy,” Fagan said of the ban.
