Beer Institute: Aluminum tariffs costly
| A 10% tariff on aluminum imposed by President Trump and not removed by President Biden is costly to consumers as well as industry and should be removed, the Beer Institute said in a news release on Thursday.Nearly four and a half years since the Section 232 tariffs on aluminum took effect, the U.S. beverage industry alone has paid more than $1.7 billion in tariffs, the Beer Institute said. “From the grocery store to the gas pump, American families are feeling inflation pressure in every aspect of life. These new numbers show that Section 232 tariffs continue to raise production costs and drive up consumer prices,” said Beer Institute Director of Public Affairs Alex Davidson. “As the CEOs of some our nation’s largest beer suppliers recently said in a letter to President Biden, ‘tariffs reverberate throughout the supply chain, raising production costs for aluminum end-users and ultimately impacting consumer prices.’ It’s time for the administration to provide Section 232 aluminum tariff relief. ”The Beer Institute said research it commissioned from HARBOR Aluminum, an independent authority on the aluminum industry and its markets, found that between the implementation of Section 232 aluminum tariffs on March 23, 2018, and August 31, 2022, the U.S. beverage industry paid $1.714 billion in Section 232 tariffs on 8.203 million metric tons of aluminum.Of that amount, the group said, “only $120 million (7%) went to the U.S. Treasury. HARBOR Aluminum estimates U.S. rolling mills, U.S. smelters and Canadian smelters received $1.594 billion (93%) of the total by charging end-users — such as U.S. brewers — a tariff-burdened price regardless of whether the metal was meant to be tariffed based on its content or origin.” Trump imposed a 10% tariff on imported aluminum in 2018 based on an investigation led by the Commerce Department, and Biden has not removed the tariff. –The Hagstrom Report |
