Over the past four years, tariffs on aluminum have cost the U.S. beverage industry upward of $1.4 billion, in turn hiking up the prices of consumer goods, according to a recent report from the Beer Institute.
“This new research shows the tariffs on aluminum continue to push up prices on American consumers and businesses,” said Jim McGreevy, president and CEO of the Beer Institute, in today’s press release. “The fastest way to alleviate these high prices on American businesses and families is to repeal the tariffs.”
Since Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act went into effect, rolling mills and smelters have been accounting for the tariffs in aluminum prices; in response, producers who buy from them have been forced to raise the price of their products.
Of the tariffs paid over the past four years, only eight percent went to the U.S. Treasury.
U.S. rolling mills, U.S. smelters, and Canadian smelters received 92 percent of that amount by charging “end-users” like U.S. brewers a price that accounted for the tariff, even if the metal was not meant to be tariffed based on its content or origin, the report stated.
