Teamsters Push Trump Administration for Tariffs on Modelo, Corona and Other Mexican Beer

The Teamsters union is asking the Trump administration to slap tariffs on beer imported from Mexico, targeting some of the best-selling brands in America: Modelo, Corona, Pacifico and Tecate.

Sean O'Brien, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, made the case directly to Fox News Digital. "We can brew Modelo beer. It's the same recipe. Let's brew it in the United States," O'Brien said. "We are very good at producing goods and services in this country."

The request landed with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which is reviewing whether foreign government policies have given certain countries' manufacturers an unfair edge, according to Fox News.

In its filing, the union says Mexican beer production has jumped 85% since 2014. About 80% of that beer ends up shipped to the United States, according to the union's own numbers cited by Fox News.

Meanwhile, capacity utilization at major U.S. breweries fell from 82% in 2013 to 65% in 2023. The Teamsters argue that gap is not an accident. They say it reflects government-backed investment incentives, cheaper labor and export-focused policy in Mexico that has let imported beer eat into market share that used to belong to American-brewed product.

The Teamsters represent tens of thousands of workers in the brewery and distribution industry, O'Brien told Fox News. He framed the push as straightforward: "I'm pro-America, pro-American worker, pro American jobs. So if there's an opportunity to tariff Mexican beer in this situation, which is gonna provide opportunity for our current members... then I'm all for tariffs and all for keeping American jobs in America."

Modelo Especial passed Bud Light in dollar sales in June 2023 and has stayed near the top of U.S. beer sales rankings since, according to Fox News. That success is exactly what makes it a target. If a brand that dominant is brewed almost entirely outside the U.S., the Teamsters see billions in economic activity that could be happening on American soil instead.

Capacity utilization at U.S. breweries really did fall by 17 percentage points in a decade, and idle brewing capacity means idle workers. That is a real, measurable trend, not a talking point invented for this fight.

But tariffs are not free. Fox News noted that economists warn the beer industry could see job losses as tariffs raise costs for brewers and importers, not just gains. Constellation Brands, which brews Modelo and Corona for the U.S. market under license from Mexico's Grupo Modelo, employs American workers in distribution, marketing, sales and logistics. Higher import costs squeeze margins across that whole chain, and price increases at retail could shrink demand, which cuts hours and jobs on the American side of the business regardless of where the beer is brewed.

There's also a practical wrinkle the union's pitch glosses over. Moving Modelo's actual brewing process to U.S. soil isn't as simple as photocopying a recipe. Water chemistry, yeast strains, existing capital investment in Mexican facilities and licensing agreements between Constellation Brands and Grupo Modelo all factor into where beer actually gets brewed. O'Brien's line that "it's the same recipe" undersells how much infrastructure and contractual complexity sits behind that supply chain.

Fox News's coverage lays out the union's argument clearly but doesn't quantify what a tariff would cost the average consumer at checkout, nor does it detail how large the broader beer-and-beverage distribution workforce is compared with the domestic brewing jobs the Teamsters say would be created. Those numbers matter for judging whether this is a net win for American workers or a wash.

No tariff has been announced. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is still assessing the underlying trade complaint, and the Trump administration has not indicated a timeline for a decision.

The open question is whether the administration weighs this as a straightforward jobs issue, the way O'Brien is pitching it, or as a consumer-price issue given Trump's broader tariff record on goods from Mexico, Canada and China already facing scrutiny over price effects on households. Constellation Brands has not been quoted publicly responding to the Teamsters' filing as of this writing, and it's unclear whether the company will formally weigh in with USTR before any decision is made.