A new deal between the U.S. and Mexico on sugar exports may have averted a costly trade war. But it’s also sparked a fierce battle between the Trump administration and some of America’s largest food companies, who claim Tuesday’s agreement will harm their businesses and ratchet up food costs for consumers.

Under the preliminary agreement, Mexico will accept a new minimum price for the sugar it sells to the U.S. and restrict the amount of refined sugar it exports, measures that will maintain high sugar prices for domestic producers.

But while those concessions were immediately celebrated as a victory for the U.S. — and for U.S. sugarcane and sugar beet farmers, in particular — it’s been panned by representatives of the processed food, confectionery and soda industries, who have long fought federal protections of domestic sugar.

The dispute pits some of America’s largest food companies against one of its most powerful agricultural lobbies — and against the Trump administration itself. In doing so, it also exposes a central paradox in President Trump’s aggressive, “America first” trade approach: Any policy that benefits some U.S. firms will also, inevitably, hurt others.

“Today’s announcement is a bad deal for hardworking Americans and exemplifies the worst form of crony capitalism,” said the Coalition for Sugar Reform — which represents Coca-Cola, Nestle, Kraft Heinz and hundreds of other food companies — in an incendiary statement. “U.S. sugar policy should empower America’s food and beverage companies to create more jobs, not put hundreds of thousands of good-paying U.S. jobs at risk just to benefit one small interest group.”

From the food industry’s perspective, this agreement — and the controversial U.S. sugar-support policy that it represents — artificially inflates U.S. sugar prices to points far above the world market. According to the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, which measures price according to futures contracts, the world price for both raw and refined sugar is lower than the respective U.S. raw and refined sugar prices.

That is no accident, economists say: Since 1981, the U.S. government has guaranteed a minimum price for U.S. sugar through a system of quotas, buy-backs and price-support loans. Restrictions on imports are key to the program, as any increase in cheap foreign sugar could cause prices to drop below the guaranteed minimum for U.S. producers.

Facing such a situation in 2013 and 2014, the U.S. and Mexico agreed to a deal that set minimum prices for Mexican sugar and limited the amounts of both raw and refined sugar it could sell into the U.S.

Tuesday’s agreement is an extension of that deal, and will increase both the import limits and the minimum prices. That will have the practical effect of maintaining sugar prices for U.S. farmers and refiners said Phillip Hayes, a spokesman for the American Sugar Alliance. He characterizes the agreement as a “law enforcement issue” that was needed to protect U.S. producers from Mexican dumping.

“Hawaii’s sugar industry shut down last December because of the uncertain market,” Hayes said. “That was largely driven by Mexico’s predatory trade practices.”