How much tobacco does the United States import? A lot: $3.448 billion in 2025 alone. And one country stands above the rest: the Dominican Republic.
Between 2023 and 2025, Dominican exports of tobacco and tobacco products to the U.S. market grew by more than 11%. To understand the Caribbean nation’s importance, consider this: one out of every three dollars the United States spent on these imports went toward products originating in the Dominican Republic.
The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) recorded $1.137 billion in imports from the Dominican Republic in 2025, accounting for nearly 33% of the entire market.
César Salinas
The Secret Weapon: Diversification
Over the past three years, the Dominican Republic has faced significant challenges in the premium cigar business. One of them, particularly from late 2025 onward, was linked to businessman Chen Zhi and the U.S. sanctions imposed on the business network associated with Prince Group.
The sanctions were imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on October 14, 2025, targeting 146 individuals and entities associated with Prince Group. The measures ultimately affected companies within the Allied Cigar group and, in turn, the operations of Tabacalera de García in the Dominican Republic and Flor de Copán in Honduras.
For several months, the factories were unable to carry out certain transactions with U.S. companies. The situation changed in May 2026, when Allied Cigar obtained a temporary OFAC license, valid through 2028, allowing exports to the United States to resume.
This was not the only factor at play, but Dominican cigar exports experienced significant declines in 2025, particularly in the higher-customs-value segment: cigars with a customs value exceeding $0.76 per unit. Many premium cigars fall into this category, although the customs classification is not equivalent to the definition of a premium cigar.
Between 2023 and 2025, U.S. imports in this category fell by approximately eight million units, a contraction of nearly 7%. Volume declined, even as the average customs value per unit increased.
Similarly, cigars and cigarillos with a customs value below $0.15 per unit fell by 16% in value over the same period. Together, these two categories lost approximately $103 million between 2023 and 2025.
But that is only part of the story.
The Dominican Republic has developed a traditional and industrial tobacco ecosystem that is more diversified than that of any other supplier to the United States. Its exports include wrapper, binder and filler leaf; other unmanufactured tobacco; cigars; cigarillos; small cigars; cigarettes; pipe tobacco; other smoking tobacco; reconstituted tobacco; and various other tobacco products.
Indeed, over the 2023–2025 period, the Dominican Republic recorded trade activity across 44 distinct tariff lines, giving it the broadest product range among all the supplier countries analyzed. India ranked second with 33, followed by Indonesia with 27, Germany with 25, and Brazil with 23.
This diversification has had tangible economic consequences. While Dominican product categories that declined subtracted approximately $111 million between 2023 and 2025, those that grew contributed an additional $226 million.
Unmanufactured tobacco stands out in particular. U.S. imports from the Dominican Republic rose from $52.9 million in 2023 to $102.3 million in 2025, an increase of 93%.
Much of that increase was associated with leaf used in cigar manufacturing, particularly wrapper and filler leaf, along with other cigar-leaf categories. The Dominican Republic has a centuries-old tobacco-growing tradition. What the data reveal is not that the country has only recently begun producing tobacco leaf, but rather the extraordinary growth in the export value of certain leaf categories, especially wrapper leaf.
A Two-Way Trade Relationship
Trade does not flow in just one direction. In 2025, the Dominican Republic was also the leading destination for U.S. exports of tobacco and tobacco products, purchasing approximately $326 million worth—3.4% more than in 2024.
What does the Dominican Republic buy from the United States? Primarily inputs for its own industry. These include several categories of wrapper tobacco, such as Connecticut tobacco, which together totaled close to 5,000 metric tons, as well as nearly 6,000 metric tons of tobacco made from cigar leaf, threshed or processed in a similar manner.
Another interesting trend emerges here.
Imports of unstemmed Connecticut Shade wrapper tobacco fell from $79.6 million in 2023 to $35 million in 2025, a decline of approximately $44.7 million. By volume, imports dropped from about 4,200 metric tons to roughly 1,790 metric tons.
Processed tobacco made from cigar leaf also declined, falling from $96.5 million to $74.2 million—a decrease of approximately $22.3 million.
This raises an important question: if the Dominican Republic is exporting more of its own tobacco leaf to the United States while simultaneously purchasing less U.S. leaf, is domestic production playing a larger role? Is the country replacing suppliers, or is its cigar industry simply changing the blend of leaf it uses?
An Integrated Industry
The figures show that the Dominican Republic’s leadership in the U.S. market can no longer be explained by premium cigars alone. The country has built an industry capable of operating across virtually the entire tobacco value chain: growing leaf, importing raw materials, processing, manufacturing, and supplying the world’s largest market with products offering varying levels of added value.
In 2025, the United States imported approximately $1.137 billion in tobacco and tobacco products from the Dominican Republic, while the Dominican Republic purchased around $326 million from the U.S. market. That translates into nearly $3.50 in Dominican exports for every $1 the country imported from the United States.
This does not mean that U.S. tobacco leaf shipped to the Dominican Republic can be traced directly to the cigars subsequently exported back to the United States. Trade statistics do not provide that level of traceability. They do, however, reveal just how closely the two industries are intertwined.
And perhaps that is the Dominican Republic’s greatest strength: when one product category declines, others can make up the difference. In just three years, the country lost more than $100 million in certain traditional cigar segments. At the same time, it nearly doubled its sales of unmanufactured tobacco, expanded other tobacco-manufacturing categories, and ended 2025 exporting more tobacco and tobacco products to the United States than it had two years earlier.
The first half of 2026 confirms that the Dominican Republic is growing despite the decline in some cigar segments, rather than relying exclusively on cigars for growth. While the highest-customs-value cigar segment lost nearly $18 million in import value and 6.8 million units, other smoking tobacco and cigarettes contributed more than $109 million in additional import value.
So far, diversification has once again offset the decline in one of the country’s longstanding tobacco categories.
