US Lobbyists Held 350-Plus Meetings to Weaken EU Deforestation Law

US corporate lobbyists mounted a two-year "blitz" involving more than 350 meetings to postpone and weaken the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), according to an investigation by the environmental watchdog Mighty Earth.

The advocacy group's findings, published in its report, identify major US firms and trade associations — including Cargill, Bunge, Mondelēz and the US Soybean Export Council, along with numerous other US companies and organizations — as the driving force behind the campaign.

The EUDR, which Mighty Earth describes as the world's most progressive legislation to protect forests, was the target of a sustained influence operation. That is the report's central claim, and it is worth reading precisely: the lobbyists did not merely oppose the law, they worked simultaneously to postpone it and to dilute it.

Who does the report name?

The investigation names four prominent actors explicitly:

• Cargill, one of the world's largest agricultural traders
• Bunge, a global grain and oilseed processor
• Mondelēz, the food giant behind brands sold in more than 150 countries
• The US Soybean Export Council, an industry trade association

Mighty Earth says these groups and numerous other US firms and organizations held more than 350 meetings over two years seeking to influence the regulation. That averages out to roughly three to four lobbying meetings every week, sustained without pause.

The scale matters more than any single meeting. A two-year campaign at that intensity suggests a coordinated strategy rather than routine regulatory engagement — though coordination itself is an inference, and the report does not detail the content of each meeting.

What does the number actually mean?

More than 350 meetings is the report's hardest figure. For context, that pace of engagement exceeds what most companies dedicate to ordinary compliance consultations, where a handful of meetings per year is typical.

Mighty Earth frames the effort as a "blitz" — the watchdog's own word — aimed at both delay and dilution. The dual objective is notable: postponement buys time, while weakening reduces what companies must do once the clock starts again.

What the report does not say, at least in the material released so far, is which specific provisions of the EUDR the lobbyists targeted or which EU officials took the meetings. Those gaps will shape how much political consequence follows.

Why does the EUDR matter to business readers?

The EUDR is described by Mighty Earth as the world's most progressive forest-protection legislation. Its scope covers commodities linked to deforestation — the very sectors where Cargill, Bunge and the soybean council operate.

For agribusiness, the regulation translates into traceability obligations across supply chains that stretch from South American and Southeast Asian growers to European supermarket shelves. For food manufacturers such as Mondelēz, it means proving that ingredients like cocoa and soy are not sourced from cleared forest land.

Compliance of that kind costs money. Lobbying against it costs money too, and the report implicitly poses the question of which investment the industry chose.

What is not in the report?

Mighty Earth documents the meetings and names the participants. The report, at least as summarized, does not:

• Identify which EU officials or institutions received the lobbying
• Quantify spending on the campaign
• Claim any specific regulatory change resulted directly from a named meeting

That last gap is the significant one. Meetings are evidence of effort, not of outcome. Whether the blitz actually delayed or weakened the EUDR requires tracing the regulation's legislative timeline against the lobbying record — a step the report's summary does not fully lay out.

The named companies have an obvious interest in the law's final shape, and none of their responses are reflected in the material available so far.

What comes next?

The report, titled "Knives Out," puts a number on an influence campaign that until now lacked a public tally. More than 350 meetings over two years is now the baseline figure for anyone assessing US corporate pressure on European environmental rules.

The next test is whether EU regulators respond — with tighter lobbying transparency, firmer defense of the EUDR's timeline, or silence. How Brussels answers will show whether the blitz moved anything beyond the meeting calendar.