Since Prohibition’s repeal, few voters have focused on alcohol as a relevant issue in federal elections. But while the majority of alcoholic beverage regulation resides at the state and local level these days, the federal government can still play a significant role in the price, availability, and societal acceptance of our favorite tipple. This year’s presidential race may in fact be the most significant federal election for alcohol since Prohibition’s aftermath.
The alcohol industry suffered heavily under Donald Trump’s tariffs during his first term, with aluminum tariffs driving up the cost of beer cans—and, in turn, the cost of beer—as well as a broiling trade war with Europe causing hardship for whiskey distilleries. Europe responded with retaliatory tariffs on bourbon and other American whiskeys; America then responded in kind with tariffs on Scottish and Irish whiskey and other European liqueurs. Given that the European market has become increasingly important for United States whiskey companies, the tariffs ended up hurting America’s whiskey industry far more than they helped it.
During the Biden administration, there has been a gradual de-escalation in the whiskey wars and aluminum tariffs. The Kamala Harris campaign has seized upon this by warning of the “Trump Tequila Tax” on imported alcohol that Americans can expect in the event of a Trump win.
However, the Biden-Harris administration has been far from reliable on tariff policy, choosing to continue many Trump-enacted tariffs rather than end them. But given that tariffs have been a persistent hobby horse for Trump since even his pre-presidential days, the American alcohol industry appears more concerned about a second Trump presidency than the comparative murkiness of Harris’ tariff inclinations.
The winery sector is fearful of another longtime Trump policy priority: Immigration. Trump’s restrictive immigration posture could have severe repercussions for the California wine industry, given its heavy reliance on immigrant labor from Mexico. At a time when many American wineries—and global wine markets writ large—are facing deep struggles, a labor supply shock to the industry could further roil the wine world.
A potential Harris administration brings its own risks. Most importantly, the U.S. dietary guidelines revision is scheduled to come out in 2025, and based on inside sources, the federal government is leaning toward declaring that “no amount of alcohol is acceptable for a healthy lifestyle.” This dietary guidance would mirror the recent proclamation of the World Health Organization that there is “no safe level” of alcohol and drastically reduce the recommended drinking levels in America’s current guidelines—taking them from two drinks per day for men and one for women, down to zero.
The results of such a move could be disastrous, as not only are many Americans impacted by the dietary guidelines, but it also could spur a wave of Tobacco-style class action lawsuits against the alcohol industry. The dietary guidelines are revised every five years, and the revision is being led by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. Under the Biden-Harris administration, these agencies have made a mess of the process, using a little-known and secretive federal agency panel that is supposed to focus on underage drinking as the conduit through which to revise downward the guidance around adult drinking levels.
Although Trump is a known teetotaler, his administration oversaw the 2020 guidelines revision, and eventually, the federal agencies spearheading the revisions decided to reject efforts to lower the drinking recommendations at that time. Given the populist working-class base Trump relies on, one alcohol industry commentator pointed out the obvious political incentives at play: “It’s hard to imagine Donald Trump telling Kid Rock he’d better only have one Bud Light per day.”
A final area that could be affected by the presidential race is the ongoing inquiry by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) into whether there are anti-competitive or antitrust concerns in the alcohol industry. The agency initiated the current review as part of the Biden administration’s much-ballyhooed antitrust crackdown. Originally targeted at concerns over the producer tier of alcohol markets, the agency has seemed to belatedly realize that to the extent there are anti-competitive concerns in alcohol land, they reside in the government-mandated wholesaling middle tier—a problem caused by government involvement, and unlikely to be readily fixable by more government intervention.
Despite some preliminary speculation that Harris could prove less aggressive on antitrust enforcement than Biden, her endorsement of antitrust scrutiny in food markets has poured cold water on this hope. While a second Trump administration features its own murkiness on how it would approach antitrust, a potential pause on the current TTB machinations seems slightly more likely under Trump, given the deregulatory emphasis in his first term.
In the end, putting all these various policy strands together leads to a sobering conclusion: Whoever ends up winning Tuesday, it’s shaping up to be a lose-lose election for Americans concerned about their life, liberty, and libations.
