A small tariff provision of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” spurred an expensive lobbying battle between special interests in the tobacco industry, including a full-court press from North Carolina’s export-dependent farming sector, where tobacco is a key cash crop.

Fairness for America, a recently established nonprofit, reportedly spent at least $1.3 million on a failed digital advertising blitz to keep the tobacco-related tariff provision in the Senate’s version of OBBB.