The modern global food system is the largest driver of nitrogen imbalances across the world. These problems are exacerbated by excessive and resource-intensive food demand prone to large amounts of loss and waste throughout the food system. Increasing international trade is shifting the burden and upstream nitrogen demand and downstream eutrophication impacts beyond national borders and moving beyond the safe regional boundaries for their presence in the environment. To better understand drivers and solutions to close nitrogen loops, we use the global food input-output model FABIO, which monitors the movement of biomass and the land utilized across global supply chains, encompassing 191 countries, and 130 agricultural and food products. We couple FABIO to nitrogen crop demand, livestock manure management systems, and agricultural surpluses to assess the consumption-based drivers for nitrogen emissions stemming from the agricultural system. A substantial amount of nitrogen losses can be attributed to traded commodities especially toward high-income nations. By implementing Marshallian elasticities to various food products, we assess changes in animal and plant protein demand due to various tax measures in the Netherlands. We explore various tax policy measures on meat and carbon emissions from the food sector to assess changes to global agricultural nitrogen use and loss and discuss the implications for the Dutch derogation of the EU Nitrates Directive due to end in 2026. This work is part of the project “Transitions toward a sustainable food system in the Netherlands” funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).