The United States Department of Agriculture released an American Biofuels Trade Outlook on 16 September, a plan built on what the department calls the strongest year for ethanol exports in the country's history.

American distillers shipped 2.2 billion gallons of ethanol abroad in 2025, worth $4.7 billion. The department says the outlook is meant to remove restrictions on American biofuels and to open market opportunities for farmers who grow the corn behind them.

"This record setting 2.2 billion gallons of U.S. ethanol shipped across the world this past year representing $4.7 billion is not by accident, it reflects the hard work of America's farmers," said Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins.

Luke Lindberg, Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, said the department's focus is on raising ethanol blending rates in other countries and on writing biofuel access into new trade agreements.

Ethanol demand matters to grain growers because it is the single largest domestic market for American corn, and an export figure of this size sets a floor under the price a farmer is offered at harvest. A trade plan that widens blending mandates abroad widens that floor.

For agricultural exporters elsewhere, the outlook is also a signal of intent: the United States is treating biofuel access as a negotiating item in trade talks rather than a domestic energy matter alone.

The department has not published a timetable for the individual market-opening steps named in the outlook. The full 2025 ethanol export figures are carried in a separate report from the Foreign Agricultural Service.

Source: USDA