When people think about threats to their food supply, they picture drought and disease impacting crops and livestock. Few think about sulfur and geopolitics. However, this unassuming yellow element is an essential ingredient in the phosphate fertilizer that every farmer in the country depends on. It has quietly become the latest front in China’s campaign to weaponize global trade against American interests.
Most Americans do not know that North America has plenty of sulfur. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the United States produces roughly 70% of its demand domestically, with neighbors Canada and Mexico easily filling the rest. On paper, America’s fertilizer supply chain should be secure. In practice, it is not, because domestic suppliers are shipping our sulfur straight to the countries trying to undermine us.
The USGS reports that U.S. sulfur exports run between 1.8 and 2 million metric tons annually, roughly a quarter of domestic production. Automated Identification System data pegs 2026 North American exports year-to-date at more than 2 million metric tons already. And where is most of it going? According to OEC trade data, the single largest recipient of American sulfur is China.
That reality is a strategic failure, and one that should catch the attention of the Trump administration.
China’s state-owned fertilizer giant Yuntianhua Group, which is subsidized by the Chinese Communist Party, has spent years positioning itself as a global fertilizer powerhouse. Beijing is happy to soak up American raw materials to feed its state-run industry. What it will not do, however, is send finished fertilizer back to the world when supplies tighten.
In recent months, China has imposed export controls on fertilizer and sulfuric acid, deliberately withholding products from the global market.
The result is a global squeeze on fertilizer inputs at the very moment American farmers can least afford it. The uncertainty regarding the Strait of Hormuz has jeopardized more than 50% of global sulfur shipments. Prices are climbing. Rather than keeping American sulfur here to steady the domestic market, U.S. oil and gas refiners are selling to the highest bidder abroad. Given that sulfur is a key byproduct of oil refinement, this further tightens supply.
Chinese state buyers, backstopped by taxpayer subsidies, can pay premiums that American fertilizer producers simply cannot match. That means higher input costs for American farmers, and eventually, higher prices at the grocery store.
Even sales to Indonesia, another major destination for North American sulfur, largely funnel through Chinese state-owned enterprises operating on Indonesian soil. The CCP fingerprints are everywhere.
This is not free trade. It is a rigged game in which state-backed monopolies extract raw materials from open economies like America’s. They then refuse to reciprocate when the world needs supply and manipulate global prices to their own advantage. The ones who fall victim to China’s scheme are American farmers, American manufacturers, and ultimately American families paying more for food.
The fix is straightforward, and it does not require a trade war. It requires reciprocity.
First, Washington should prohibit Chinese state-owned enterprises from purchasing American sulfur for as long as Beijing maintains export bans on the finished fertilizer products the world urgently needs. This ban ought to extend to any nation that saps American raw materials only to close off its marketplaces. If any nation refuses to trade fairly, it should not enjoy preferential access to the raw materials that fuel its state industries.
Secondly, American policymakers must help ensure American sulfur and fertilizer are able to go to American farmers at market prices. Rather than letting our own supply drain overseas to the highest foreign bidder, American buyers ought to have the right of first refusal to these key raw materials before they are shipped abroad. Only when America’s food supply is secure should key inputs leave its borders.
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Lastly, the reduction of regulatory barriers around permitting would provide a much-needed boost to sulfur supply. Because sulfur is a byproduct of oil refinement, increased domestic refining capacity will create additional sulfur outputs. This will help domestic suppliers meet domestic demand and profit from overseas sales. It is a win-win proposition.
America has the resources to feed itself and much of the world. What it lacks now is the political will to stop foreign adversaries from turning America’s openness into a weapon aimed at dinner tables across the nation. American families deserve better.
George Landrith is the president of Frontiers of Freedom, a public policy think tank devoted to promoting a strong national defense, free markets, individual liberty, and constitutionally limited government.