'Let's brew it in the United States': Teamsters target Modelo and Corona in push for Mexican beer tariffs

The Teamsters wanting a 75% tariff on Modelo tells you something about where American politics actually is right now. This isn't some think tank memo about trade theory. It's the union that drives the trucks and stocks the shelves saying they'd rather sell beer brewed in Fort Worth than beer brewed in Zacatecas, and they want the president to make that happen with a number attached to it.

There's something almost quaint about a beer tariff fight in an economy dominated by chips and software, but that's exactly why it matters. Beer is physical. It requires grain, water, glass, aluminum, trucks, and people to drive those trucks. Modelo became the best-selling beer in America by out-competing domestic brands on price and taste, and now the workers who move product for a living are asking whether that competition has been fair to the guy loading the pallet in Ohio versus the one loading it in Guadalajara.

Whether 75% is the right number is a fair question, and probably not one we'd answer the same way the Teamsters would. Tariffs that steep risk just making beer more expensive without actually moving a single brewery north of the border. But the instinct underneath the number, that American production and American jobs should count for something when we set trade policy, isn't crazy. It's the same instinct that got Trump elected twice.

What's notable is who's asking. This isn't a Fox News fever dream, it's a labor union with real members and real votes going to the White House with a specific industry and a specific ask. That's the coalition realignment nobody in either party has fully priced in yet.