Trump administration puts 25% tariff on all canned beer imports, empty aluminum cans
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/02/trump-puts-tariffs-on-canned-beer-imports.html?taid=67ed8340897a3b00016a8fc8209
u/Radjage 3d ago
Time to start home brewing again
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u/Igotzhops 3d ago
Remember to thank Jimmy Carter!
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u/Elliottstabler927 3d ago
Unfortunately a lot of malt and hops are imported, so the cost of homebrewing is going to go up too.
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u/Jonkinch 3d ago
My favorite ones come from Oregon.
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u/Mcsparten117 3d ago
Everyone’s favorites will come from the US. Every brewer will buy up as much local malts and hops as possible if it fits their recipes. Some could even change some recipes, but there is not enough local supply to weather this drastic shift. Especially with huge hits on aluminum too.
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u/Jonkinch 3d ago
That’s gotta affect soda too though, not just beer. You know, it took prohibition in the 1920s for outlaws to fight the government.
Hell, I think it’d be fun to run moonshine!
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u/AsSubtleAsABrick 2d ago
Those will go up too as the tariffs reduce supply overall.
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u/Exhumedatbirth76 3d ago
Can't wait to see how many small breweries stop selling crowlers out of their taproom....at my shop I don't have any package but already trying to figure out how to use American malts instead of German malts... In the words of Nandor the Relentless...This fucking guy...
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u/Harley297 3d ago
The age of glass growlers has returned
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u/Mgnickel 3d ago
I collected about 12 of these 20 years ago. Would be nice to see again with cool artwork
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u/TB1289 2d ago
Some places will make growlers a thing again but it's such a huge hassle dealing with them.
Between just the initial cost, then finding a place to store them, then if people are bringing it back to get filled, if it's not clean they bitch about the beer being off. They're a complete headache.
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u/s32 2d ago
Crowlers feel like a fad anyways. Everyone installed a machine around here and now nobody buys em. Most breweries have moved to mobile canning machines or bottles instead (which are way better than Crowlers imo)
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u/Exhumedatbirth76 2d ago
Still have to buy a pallet of cans or more at a time. This tariff is going to fuck small shops.
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u/s32 2d ago
Oh I totally agree. Was more just commenting on the lack of staying power for crowlers
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u/Jefftaint 3d ago
Happy Liberation Day!
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u/pjokinen 3d ago
Oh there will be plenty of more money liberated from the oppression it faces in my wallet, I can guarantee you that
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u/WoolSmith 3d ago
More like Retardation Day
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u/GrizzlyAdam12 3d ago
Yep. A Reciprocal tariff is like shooting yourself in the foot to punish your neighbor because they shot themself in the foot.
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u/LA_Nail_Clippers 3d ago
Plenty of MAGA types would eat a turd sandwich if they could have a liberal smell their breath.
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u/RichUSF 3d ago
Does anyone here work in the beverage industry? We're US based and purchase from a US based supplier, but their sub supplier gets aluminum from Canada. Worried about these fees.
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u/Eyehatedave 3d ago
I’m a sales rep for a large distribution company. We are already facing declining sales. This will not help.
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u/HappyMoses 3d ago
Yeah I’m a rep for a large distributor too. We’re already taking a fuckin bath this year
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u/Melcoal 2d ago
Aye, I manage a liquor store in a particularly red area of a non-ABC state - Not that that should have anything to do with it. We started to see a small decline starting last June, but from what I've gathered were more fortunate than most. Currently, year over year were down about 8% overall with nonalcoholic beer and tequila trending up so far.
Talking with reps has been insanely hit or miss - ranging everything from the expected talking points (we're not expecting any price increases, tariffs either won't actually go into effect -or- won't effect /my/ products, etc) to the more candid and realistic (company x bought a 2 yr supply of this French wine, price increases will be coming but unsure when or how much, etc.) The common thread is the uncertainty of what's going to happen or when, and an alarming number of reps, distributors, and brands appear to me to not have much of a plan in place. Damn I hope I'm wrong on that, though.
Talking with customers... Oh boy. It seems like a vast majority keep complaining about gas, eggs, mega millions, etc going up in price, but no one has even considered beer wine or spirits. Tequila has been the one I've used as my example, because guiding them to realize Sierra Nevada does not in fact magic their cans out of the dirt in their back yard isn't always easy. These are Maga supporters though, and terrible as it is to say anyone living in an echo chamber is going to add to the echo - regardless of aisle side.
Candidly? I'm worried. I, and the people I work along side, have worked hard to cultivate more of a bottle shop vibe with higher end craft beer in case ABC ever comes near MD (and boy does ore current govener want it), but it's already been dropping... Making an already $20 4pk jump even higher isn't going to do anyone any favors. There are some ways to offset of course, but you cannot force people change with a prefer to drink. Additionally, I've seen enough companies watch a percentage of the market share take a price increase, then increase their own prices to appear more competitive... most annoyingly however, I'm sure we all can agree how exceedingly rare it is that the price of things comes back down. Do I think I'll end up in a position where the store is not profitable? Absolutely not. But I do think it's going to add stressed to an already strained structure, metaphorically speaking.
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u/the_Q_spice 3d ago
I work for FedEx, but yeah, the fees aren’t going to be nice.
As the tariffs hike, we also hike our rates - largely to underwrite the risk we take consigning international shipments through Customs.
It seems greedy at first glance, but as the customs clearinghouse - we take on 100% of the financial risks if the shipment is rejected, or worse, found in violation.
IE; if FedEx consigns a shipment that is rejected for violating import controls - FedEx eats the fine, not the shipper or recipient. Depending on the violation, this can be tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per package.
Our upper management is predicting us to lose a ton of money due to the tariffs - even though our prices are increasing.
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u/bishpa 3d ago
I can tell you that UPS hasn't currently got the institutional wisdom to process these tariffs correctly. They significantly overpaid customs on some items that my daughter ordered (before the February tariffs were announced) and then wanted to charge brokerage fees for providing their "service".
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u/UnreproducibleSpank 3d ago
Work for a distributor. Trying to work my way up and get promoted. This will not help.
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u/limebiscuit53 3d ago
I work for a larger supplier with several international brands. Concern is there especially with a softening industry. At the end of the day these things are out of our control. Costs will undoubtedly go up. Will the consumer be willing to eat the extra cost? That’s where the unknown and concern is. It sucks but there’s nothing we can do about it.
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u/ThotTubTimeMachine69 3d ago
I work in the industry and yeah it’s already bad. Our Mexican beers are down 40% from last year
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u/External-Dude779 3d ago
What a dick
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u/krafty369 3d ago
So by this logic, he doesn't do anything,.as he doesn't care about anything
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u/anlsrnvs 3d ago
Yep. Pretty much. It is almost always financially motivated. Sometimes it's motivated financially but dude doesn't understand basic economics so even when he's motivated to do something it's a shitshow. Must be nice to be a swindler that failed upwards to become the king of a country that thought it was the best democracy in the world
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u/FleshlightModel 3d ago
Other than house some shitty fast food and enjoy well done steaks with ketchup.
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u/zak567 3d ago
The fact people still voted for him after he straight up said he was going to do this was the moment that I realized my country was too stupid to succeed.
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u/CallRespiratory 3d ago
They literally think that it's fine because we'll just be making everything here next week and that's not how this works at all. Manufacturing is not coming back, shit is just getting more expensive.
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u/nopropulsion 3d ago
I consulted on a facility that is being built that will recycle and manufacture cans.
They broke ground several years ago and the facility isn't going to be done for at least another year. That doesn't even include design. Factories don't just pop up overnight!
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u/TheSavageDonut 3d ago
What are you talking about? They don't need to build them here.
Companies are going to uproot all their factories in China, using Tesla helicopters, and plop them down in Red States.
Bingo -- instant manufacturing. Instant jobs. Instant money.
/s (just you never know)
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u/turbosexophonicdlite 3d ago
That's even assuming manufacturing comes back in the first place. That ain't happening. The vast majority of American producers will just raise prices to match or slightly undercut the new higher prices from imported goods instead of ramping up production in the US. Less investment and more immediate returns. It's so obvious, but half our country doesn't have 2 brain cells to rub together to figure out this basic shit.
And even IF they do, like you said, it will take years. And they'll still just keep their prices slightly under the foreign competition and pocket the difference.
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u/OutlyingPlasma 3d ago
On top of the time to build factories, no sane company is going to invest building a factory in such a politically unstable country. Why build in crazy town who's tariffs yoyo based on how much gas the leader has from his McDonald's that evening.
On top of that, prices will never come down. Prices never come down on anything ever. Even if the tariffs disappear in 4 years the companies are not going to drop prices when they could just take the money for themselves instead.
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u/nathansikes 3d ago
And even when they do make it here, they'll just price it just below the imports, so we still lose
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u/eNonsense 3d ago
We don't really mine, or have much Aluminum to mine in the US anyway. There's no way to make Aluminum domestic in the US. This is just a straight up new regressive tax.
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u/palmmoot 3d ago
Most Americans are too stupid and lazy to work manufacturing anyway. Even if plants magically opened tomorrow you still have to actually show up to work on time every day.
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u/spursjb395 3d ago
It's a bit like us Brits and Brexit.
Everyone is now moaning that things that used to be cheap (due to cheap labour) are now no longer cheap and that the NHS actually doesn't get another £100m a week because of it. T
Ultimately, the average voter is fucking moron. And that's a global issue.
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u/Shnoigaswandering 3d ago
He also lied to everybody's faces and said tariffs wouldn't lead to higher prices. Hard to blame all the uneducated folks who bought it hook line and sinker.
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u/Noobasdfjkl 2d ago
My line on this is that people literally think there is a dial labeled “economy” in the Oval Office, and they’re mad that Biden didn’t turn it enough. Trump’s platform while campaigning was nakedly inflationary, and the completely expected actions he promised to do are having the utterly obvious effects.
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u/houstonman6 3d ago
Hey everyone who voted for Trump: he made beer more expensive, that'll own the libs! Good going jackasses!
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u/RackemFrackem 2d ago
Honestly, if your breaking point is beer price increases and not the rape, fraud, bigotry, hatefulness, stupidity, pathological lying, and the coup attempt, then fuck you too.
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u/BandRnorthsiders 3d ago
I talked to one of my local brewery owners yesterday and she said that prices had already increased 4 cents per can that they hadn’t passed on to customers.
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u/CapnYuk 3d ago
So let me get this straight: The people who voted for lower prices are collectively cheering as prices are raised on nearly everything—including shit like beer, which we can assume DIRECTLY impacts them—and they somehow think they’re NOT in a cult that has them blindly following a dubious figure to their doom?? Damn. 77 million retards have commandeered our country…
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u/michaelmoeller 3d ago
Cool.
Thanks, MAGA. Keep doing everything except taxing the po’ wittle billionaires.
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u/ghostguitar93 3d ago
I am not paying anymore than I have to for beer. I thought 4-packs over 12$/15$ was crazy, even 750ml or 500ml or what have you, but if my six pack goes from 9.99$/10.99$ to 12$/15$ six pack like I'll just homebrew and buy liquor, maybe growlers, but I'm about ready to give it all up. I can only afford so much in this life.
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u/Abominatrix 3d ago
Time to switch to whiskey.
Oh wait, I did that almost a decade ago and all the hobbyists looking for a new pokemon card to collect jacked that up too. Back to piss vodka, I suppose.
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u/bishpa 3d ago
You know what's purely domestic? Weed.
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u/Davo300zx 3d ago
I'm blazing right now. Been a crazy day. Drinking some cheap LaBatt Blue. RIP LITLLE CANADIAN BUDDY
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u/False_Can_5089 3d ago
The bourbon market is entirely silly at this point. The real fallback option IMO seems to be the big regional craft brewers. Sierra Nevada is still pretty damn cheap.
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u/TheSavageDonut 2d ago
The Trump Tariff taxes haven't really kicked in yet. We won't see the real effects for a couple of months.
Retailers may raise prices anyway to "prepare consumers" for the shock that is about to come, but products right now on shelves don't have anything to do with the new tariffs.
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u/Area51_Spurs 3d ago
Run a liquor store I’m about to buy from the current owner.
60%+ of our beer sales will now be tariff’d.
And we have a wide selection of European wines and other wines from around the world we’ll be fucked on.
Tequila is by far our number one selling premium spirit. We’re fucked there.
Bourbon prices and prices on all other beer and liquor and wine will go up as well.
Everything is fucked.
People say “but folks will still buy booze, you’ll be fine.”
But now they’ll go to the supermarket because we can’t compete on price, but people would previously be ok paying a little more to buy from us. But now we might be double the price and that will be too much for people to swallow.
So as usual big corporations will be fine and us little guys get fucked.
For those unaware, the supermarkets sell a lot of the stuff bat or below cost as loss leaders since they want you to buy groceries there.
That doesn’t work with us. So people will go there rather than pay the (much) higher prices here.
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u/juber434 3d ago
I was brewing through the last aluminum trade war. We almost got our brewery blessed to be kosher so we could get the “kosher certified” lids. Good luck yall
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u/Mead_Man_Detroit 3d ago
Fuck this administration in their asses with the biggest dildo known to man.
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u/DoodleDew 3d ago
A lot of the imports I buy and beer in general are in bottles except local stuff that are in cans. This is still a big blow and sucks for all breweries and us drinkers
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u/dsnymarathon21 3d ago
Eh, the entire trend has been cans because it’s cheaper, easier, and more recyclable.
Fuck Trump.
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u/midgethemage 3d ago
This was my thought too. Glass bottles are so bad for the environment in terms shipping/distribution. Feels like we're just speed running the whole global warming thing
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u/False_Can_5089 3d ago
I noticed a lot of Belgian breweries have been putting out more cans lately. I hope this doesn't hit them too hard. The import market already seems like it's shrinking.
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u/TheSavageDonut 2d ago
I think the Belgian breweries will play around with smaller can sizes as a way to combat the tariffs.
Maybe 10oz cans?
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u/pbates89 3d ago
Insane that republicans want this and they voted for this. You’d think they wouldn’t want to pay more for beer, but here we are.
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u/RippedHookerPuffBar 3d ago
They don’t know what they want.
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u/stunafish 3d ago
They know what they want, just not the consequences they'll have to face themselves
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u/RippedHookerPuffBar 3d ago
We know these people. They’re our neighbors, friends, peers, family.. most of them really don’t KNOW what they want - they’re just living their lives and honestly, for the most part, not giving these sorts of things too much thought.
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u/Arbyssandwich1014 3d ago
Ughhhhh there goes the German beers I like. I'm gonna go grab some before they're 20-30 dollars for an 8 pack.
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u/ilikebeer19 3d ago
I mostly drink domestic craft, but Guinness, Pilsner Urquell, and Weihenstephaner Helles are some of my favorite cans.
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u/lifeinrednblack 3d ago
Domestic craft will still almost certainly see increases as well. Craft breweries still use cans
Also most malt, yeast and a large chunk of hops can't be grown in the US.
There are very few commercial scale yeast labs. And they're expensive. And even they will run into issues trying to get props.
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u/_revelationary 3d ago
I’ve been pregnant since September and have 4 weeks left. Great timing for me…
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u/MeIIowJeIIo 3d ago edited 3d ago
Well, apparently here in Canada all our cans are made in USA , but the aluminum is Canadian.
So for US, does the canned beer imports include Guinness, and other Europe stuff? That would definitely suck.
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u/drinkingonthejob 3d ago
Fuck this stupid fucking fuck. And fuck you if you voted for him. You stupid fucks
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u/Right_Philosophy6717 2d ago
Please explain like I am five. Isn't most of the aluminum coming from Canada and then being made into cans in the us? Seems weird to tariff the made product which mostly is made in your own country.
I feel this is really going to hurt us Canadian brewers though because it seems like they can slap us with more tarrifs on the same product
If there is Canadian can manufacturing please let me know. I will choose local and avoid tariffs.
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u/aearl1984 14h ago
Wonder if this will swing the industry back into glass bottles… seemed that all the brewers had gone like 80-90% cans. Dammit, I like cans
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u/Mackinnon29E 3d ago
How many MAGA drink beer I wonder? They all switched to Modelo right? Ooooofff
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u/SheZowRaisedByWolves 3d ago
This might be nature and my liver’s way of telling me I should get back on valium
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u/deinterlacing 2d ago
Does anyone have insight on using glass bottles vs cans? I've noticed a lot of breweries have been switching to cans lately. I assumed it was because it's cheaper.
Will the tariffs make breweries wanna switch back to bottles?
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u/electricgotswitched 2d ago
The cost of cans would have to go up so much it's worth spending however many tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a bottling machine back in.
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u/ProfessionaICracker 1d ago
And the only people that are affected by this are small breweries. Fuck off dornaldo turnip
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u/joshb625 3d ago
Own a brewery, this will impact us. Sucks.