The Beer Industry Is Campaigning Hard Against Trump’s Aluminum Tariff


Uproxx

Canning beer — especially with modern sealants and coatings — keeps it fresher longer and makes it easier to ship. So the first reaction from most people when Donald Trump announced a 10% tariff on aluminum to go with his 25% tariff on steel was “here comes more expensive beer.” But not if the beer industry can help it.

The beer industry, both directly and via its lobbying group The Beer Institute, is not playing around with Trump and his tariffs. The CEO of the Beer Institute (and can we just marvel for a moment that’s an actual job?) Jim McGreevy, went on Fox Business to say it’s a tax on beer:

McGreevy has noted here and elsewhere that this would cost the beer industry $347 million a year, and probably mean a cut of 20,000 jobs. This follows up beer producers themselves taking to social media to directly call out the President of the United States, joining Patagonia and GM as brands that have dunked on the supposed leader of the free world:


And of course, if the big guys are complaining, you know the little guy is getting buried by this decision, as Brewbound reports:

During a Brewers Association webinar, industry consultant Bump Williams said canned offerings now account for 23 percent of total craft dollar sales. He added that sales of canned craft beer grew to nearly $1 billion last year. BA federal affairs manager Katie Marisic told Brewbound that aluminum cans account for more than a quarter of package production for BA-defined craft brewers last year. “Brewers that produce less than 10,000 barrels or are just getting started, do seem to trend toward canning as a method of packaging,” she said. “We have concerns that a price increase could be harmful.”

In other words, this tariff is going to ding everybody in the beer industry from the macro brew loyalist to the beer snob, the guys in the boardroom to the guys driving the trucks. And it appears the industry, and quite possibly its customers, are gearing up to fight.

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