Trump's aluminum tariffs could be coming for our precious cans of beer
Donald Trump's latest policy change could hit your beer budget where it hurts.
On Thursday, Trump announced a plan to place tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from all around the globe, and in the process, freaked out pretty much everyone – from the countries that produce those materials to the companies that buy them.
The proposed tariffs? Per Trump's Thursday remarks, the White House plans to slap a 25 percent tariff on steel, and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum.
Why? Because Trump says he's trying to help U.S. metal producers, who he claims have been "very unfairly treated by bad policy, by bad trade deals, by other countries. They’ve been horribly treated by other countries, and they have not been properly represented."
Companies affected by the aluminum tariff naturally include U.S. beer companies. Think of all those cans! As Bloomberg reports, Anheuser-Busch InBev CFO Felipe Dutra said on an analyst call Thursday that "2 million jobs depend on America's beer industry."
And shortly after the White House announcement, MillerCoors – producers of 53 beer brands, including Blue Moon, Terrapin, and Redd's – made its disapproval clear in a public statement via Twitter.
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The MillerCoors statement says a rise in aluminum pricing "is likely to lead to job losses across the beer industry," and suggested that U.S. metal producers don't offer enough aluminum to meet industry demands.
"American workers and American consumers will suffer as a result of the misguided tariff," it concluded.
The Beer Institute, the beer industry's national trade association, also came out against Trump's tariff decision on Thursday. President and CEO Jim McGreevy said in a public statement that a 10 percent aluminum tariff will "endanger American jobs in the beer industry and throughout the supply chain."
As is typical for most Trump administration policy roll-outs, the details – beyond percentages – remain vague. When asked how long he'd keep these tariffs in place, Trump replied, "Unlimited period. Unlimited." More information, he suggested, will come sometime next week.
In the mean time, we're pretty sure beer industry CEOs are in for a few sleepless nights.
