Is Coca Cola helping Donald Trump deport migrants to Africa?
Under a secret deal, the small African kingdom agreed to take five deported migrants from the U.S. Then, hours later, Donald Trump announced some surprising news from the world's biggest soft drinks company.
The five alleged criminals were described as "so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back." They came from Cuba and Jamaica off America's East coast as well as from the West in Vietnam and Laos.
So how did they end up in the small African kingdom of Eswatini?
That was the question everyone was asking when the news broke on Tuesday that the men had been flown across the Atlantic and incarcerated in a country best known for its safaris and traditional monarchy.
There was no word from either side about what deal had been done, although, as always with Donald Trump, rumours swirled about tariff deals.
Eswatini, it turns out, doesn't trade that much with America - sending around $30 million dollars of goods a year. About 85% of those exports are linked to a single product, sugar.
Which is where Coca-Cola comes in. In most of the world, the company is a huge consumer of sugar, but the USA has always been different. Because of the difficulty of sourcing enough cane sugar to supply the huge demand, the drinks maker uses high-fructose syrup made from locally grown corn.
For years, there have been concerns that the practice contributes to America's obesity epidemic. US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jnr has been a particular opponent and seems to have convinced Trump, a famous consumer of no-sugar Diet Coke. Which is how, hours after the news of the deportations broke, Trump made an announcement which gained even more attention on the world stage. Coke would switch its production to use cane sugar.
Coincidence? Possibly. But in Trump's America, you never know.
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
