U.S. Ethanol Exports Surge on Trade Deals as Industry Warns against Unraveling USMCA

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June 22, 2026

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by Jenny Schlecht (AgWeek) ... The United Kingdom, Lindberg (Luke Lindberg, under secretary of agriculture for trade and foreign agricultural affairs in the U.S. Department of Agriculture) noted, has increased its purchase of ethanol by about 50% following a trade agreement with the U.S. There also has been progress with Vietnam and Taiwan, he said. Lindberg, speaking to Agweek on May 22, said he has spoken recently with President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala to talk about implementation of an E10 mandate in that country, due to go into place on June 30. Lindberg said the U.S. is positioned to be a primary provider of ethanol for Guatemala to meet the demand.

"Other markets around the world are waking up to the fact that U.S. ethanol can provide them with ways to meet their sustainability goals but also reduce the price at the pump," he said.

The U.S. was the top global producer of ethanol, by far, in 2025, producing more than half of the world's ethanol. U.S. ethanol exports have nearly doubled since 2016, going from 1.161 billion gallons in 2016 to 2.181 billion in 2025, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.

"Exports have been tremendously important to the ethanol industry the last several years," said Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association. "In fact, about 1 out of every 8 gallons of ethanol that we're producing today is being exported to countries around the world. Last year, we shipped ethanol to more than 80 countries and had a record year for exports last year, and we are expecting to eclipse that by a fairly large margin in 2026."

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"Countries around the world over the past decade have really latched onto the economic benefits of using more ethanol, and the U.S. is the low-cost producer around the world," he said.

Another factor has been the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement that went into effect in 2018.

"USMCA has helped keep those markets open and growing. Canada is our largest export market by far. Last year, about a third of our exports went north of the border into Canada. We have duty-free access to the Canadian market, partly as a result of USMCA, and we're seeing growing exports to Mexico as well. ... "

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President Donald Trump signed USMCA in his first term. While USMCA was seen by many as a needed update on NAFTA and a major achievement for the Trump administration, Trump recently called it "irrelevant" and said there is "no real advantage" to it.

“I don’t know that I will renew it," Trump said on June 10. "We don’t need anything that Canada has. We don’t need anything that Mexico has."

"We definitely need Canada, and we definitely need Mexico when it comes to our export markets," Cooper said. "Those two countries represent a big chunk of where our exports are going, and not just ethanol exports. In the ethanol industry, we also produce a large amount of animal feed called distillers grains, and Mexico has consistently been our top market for distillers grains exports. They're taking about 20% of all of the distillers' grains that we are exporting."

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Exports have been vitally important to ethanol because domestic demand "has essentially been flat" for several years, Cooper said.

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The newfound export sales would not suffer if more ethanol was used stateside, Cooper said.

"Corn growers harvested a record crop of 17 billion bushels last year. We've got ending stocks of 2 billion bushels or more. They're looking at another large crop this year, and USDA is again projecting close to 2 billion bushels in carryout, so there's plenty of feedstock available for us to ramp up ethanol production, and we have plenty of capacity in the ethanol industry to do that," Cooper said.

E15 also would be a winning policy for drivers, he said, pointing out that more ethanol in fuel would mean lower prices.

"The situation in the Middle East and what's happening in global oil markets today and at the pump, which every consumer sees when they go to buy gasoline, is really putting an exclamation point on just how important this really is, and how, you know, how high the stakes are," Cooper said. READ MORE

Related articles

RFA: USMCA review could boost ethanol sales south of the border (Brownfield Ag News)
Republicans push USMCA renewal (Politico)
Failing to Renew the USMCA Would Increase Tariff Uncertainty and Harm Americans (Tax Foundation)

Excerpt from Brownfield Ag News: Geoff Cooper (CEO of Renewable Fuels Association) tells Brownfield Mexico has regulatory barriers in place, but.

“There does seem to be a growing openness and understanding in Mexico that they really could benefit from opening their market to U.S. ethanol. It would help lower their prices.”

He says Mexico uses more MTBE than any other country in the world to raise octane levels in its gasoline.

“And we all know the human health dangers of MTBE, the water quality dangers of using that product. That’s why it’s not used in the U.S. and most of the world today. So I do think there is a new discussion happening in Mexico about allowing access for ethanol.”

Cooper says Canada remains the largest importer of U.S. ethanol, so it’s important the USMCA review does not disrupt that market. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico:

TRADE TROUBLES: Farm-state Republicans are urging Trump to reconsider his stance on USMCA after he suggested he would abandon the trade deal weeks ahead of its July mandatory review.

Senate Ag Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) told your host that he has spoken with the White House and is “encouraging that we get a new commitment signed as soon as possible.”

“USMCA is very important, and I think that the president will ultimately negotiate a good deal,” Boozman said. “It was one of his centerpiece achievements of his last administration.”

Trump told reporters on June 10 that he was erring on the side of terminating the trade agreement because “we don’t need anything that Canada has, we don’t need anything that Mexico has.”

The Trump administration is conducting formal negotiations with Mexico and recently opened discussions with Canada as part of the six-year review of USMCA. Under the deal’s “sunset review” provision, all three countries must meet on July 1 to say whether they want to renew the pact for another 16 years.

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) told MA that she hopes “the White House is going to reconsider” letting the deal expire because USMCA is “a wonderful trade agreement for our ag producers.” Other senators similarly emphasized the deal has been a boon to American farmers and the broader economies of the participating nations.

“It’s pretty clear to me, and I hope everybody else, even the president of the United States, that … it’s beneficial to all three countries,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told reporters last week.

Republicans are holding out hope that despite Trump’s suggestions that he will not renew USMCA, he will change his mind come July. Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said his negative comments about the pact may have just been “Art of the Deal”-style gamesmanship.

“The president likes to keep the other party off balance in any negotiation,” Hoeven said. “I think that may be his negotiating style so that they don’t assume we’re going to get it just the way it is.”

Key context: If one or more countries object to renewing USMCA, the agreement would expire in 2036, unless negotiators resolve outstanding concerns in annual reviews over the next 10 years.

Any of the countries could terminate the agreement with six months’ notice, though both Mexico and Canada have sent letters to the Trump administration saying they support renewing the deal. READ MORE

Excerpt from Tax Foundation:

USMCA imports were largely exempted from President Trump’s tariff policy. As a result, compliance with USMCA surged from 44 percent in 2024 to 67 percent in 2025 and remains above 80 percent so far in 2026, insulating a large share of US imports from those tariffs.
We estimate that removing USMCA exemptions would raise taxes by $466 billion from 2027 through 2036—or about $300 per US household in 2027—and shrink US output by 0.1 percent and hours worked by the equivalent of 95,000 full-time jobs. READ MORE