US beverage industry lobbying against tariff on can sheets

Trump administration’s protective policies that claim to boost the struggling U.S. industries and protect national security may create wide-ranging repercussions like increase in the price of beer and soda cans.

Over 30 prominent representatives from the beverage industry - including executives from often competing companies like both Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and both Anheuser-Busch and the Brewers Association gathered and signed a letter to president Trump. They appealed to the president to exclude the aluminium can sheet imported to make cans and bottles in his “Investigation on the Effect of Imports of Aluminum on US National Security.”

The industry executives fear that the president may impose new tariffs, taxes or import restrictions on aluminium, which would eventually drive up the overall cost of aluminium products including cans. Beverage brands are most likely to pass on the expenses to consumers leading to increase in the price of canned beverages.

They are unsure about the general implications of aluminium put forward by policy makers and the administration as a metal used by the defence industry.

“We are concerned that the scope of this investigation will include aluminum that has no national security application, such as rolled can sheet and the primary aluminum which is processed into aluminum food, beverage cans and bottles, lids and closures,” the appeal says.

They argue that the type of aluminium sheets that they urge for exclusion of tariffs are not available in enough quality in the U.S. as U.S. aluminium industry mostly produces high-end aluminium alloys with better profit margins.

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The national security agenda, put forward as an argument in order to protect the interest of the aluminium industry is a debatable issue. But, for an average American, a rise in the price of canned soda and beer would affect their day to day expense and that would be one of the major side effects of inflicting extra tariff.

This is for the first time that the administration is creating a situation where the consumer is caught in a battle between national securities vs. cheaper canned beverages.