A new report from the watchdog group Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (CASE) highlights an alleged foreign monopoly on America’s domestic beer market and its stranglehold on small, independent brewers based in the U.S.
The report, first obtained by the Daily Caller, focuses on global beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, “the world’s largest brewer.” InBev, a Belgian-Brazilian conglomerate, bought the iconic American company Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion in 2008. It is now headquartered in Belgium and boasts a massive portfolio of beer brands that includes Budweiser and Michelob ULTRA. (RELATED: REPORT: Anheuser-Busch Hosted Secret Fundraiser With Democratic Staffers)
“AB InBev stifles the competition to advance its interests by combining sophisticated and well-funded political, lobbying, advertising machines,” CASE states, pointing to the millions spent on federal lobbying efforts and the company’s shift in marketing after the Bud Light boycott triggered by transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
“Its long-running ‘Choose Beer Grown Here’ and ‘Made of America’ marketing campaigns, launched as part of an effort to rebrand in the aftermath of the Mulvaney debacle, have largely obscured the fact that the company’s corporate headquarters are located in Leuven, Belgium, not in middle America like their advertising would have you believe.”
FAIRFIELD, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 15: An aerial view of the Anheuser-Busch Budweiser brewing facility on December 15, 2025 in Fairfield, California. Anheuser-Busch, the world’s largest brewing company, announced plans to close its facility in Fairfield after 50 years. The plant will close by February 22, 2026 and will impact 240 employees. The company will also sell a plant in New Jersey and close a brewery in New Hampshire. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
CASE also highlights the company’s 2013 settlement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) over its purchase of a controlling interest in the Mexican beer manufacturer, Grupo Modelo. As part of the settlement, AB InBev was allowed to complete the $20 billion deal, but the DOJ required them to sell the U.S. rights for Modelo beer to Constellation Brands to prevent a beer monopoly in the U.S. market. Any Modelo bought in the United States is legally owned by Constellation Brands.
CASE notes that the U.S. beer industry “benefited from the DOJ settlement as the number of domestic small and independent craft brewers exploded from 4,803 in 2015 to 9,578 in 2025.” However, the watchdog says the settlement never addressed “structural concerns” from small independent brewers over product distribution. AB InBev, the report notes, “often incentivizes major distributors to prioritize its products, leaving independent brewers struggling to find reliable distribution channels.” Small brewers are also disadvantaged in states where it is illegal to self-distribute their products.
“In sum, while the DOJ agreement was good for craft brewers in the sense that a more concentrated market would have been worse for them, it wasn’t designed to help them directly, and the pervasive distribution problems that matter most to small brewers were left mostly unchanged,” the report states.
AB InBev is lobbying U.S. states to repeal a sales tax on its products. CASE says the company will try to replicate this effort at the federal level, as President Donald Trump renegotiates the 2020 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. (RELATED: Why The Trump Admin Shelved His Signature Trade Deal)
ARCO, ID – APRIL 21: A sign disparaging Bud Light beer is seen along a country road on April 21, 2023 in Arco, Idaho. Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of Bud Light has faced backlash after the company sponsored two Instagram posts from a transgender woman.(Photo by Natalie Behring/Getty Images)
“AB InBev controls nearly half of the domestic beer market. Let that sink in. A foreign company controls half the US beer market. A gigantic tax break for ‘American beer’ would deliver nearly half its benefit to a foreign conglomerate that, when Canadian trade tensions flared after President Trump’s tariff announcements, ran a ‘Made in Canada’ ad campaign celebrating its Canadian workers and Canadian barley,” the report reads.
CASE calls on U.S. policymakers to address “AB InBev’s unfair distribution practices with craft brewers,” push back against further tax breaks, and prevent the company “from achieving the kind of monopoly power the DOJ feared.”
“In 2026, winners and losers in the American marketplace should not be determined by politicians. As many of us prepare to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary with a cold one, the last thing policymakers should be doing is rewarding a foreign conglomerate that doesn’t play by the rules with a giant tax break,” the report concludes.
AB InBev has long drawn scrutiny from members of Congress as well as the Treasury Department over its dominance of the U.S. market. AB InBev’s then-CEO Carlos Brito defended the company’s $107 billion merger with SABMiller, an international company that brews Peroni, Miller, and other brands, during a 2015 hearing for the Senate Committee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights.
“What we’ve seen in the past years is a trend towards massive beer behemoths in our market, and the result has not been a happy one for many consumers,” Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said at the hearing.
After the 2008 merger between Anheuser-Busch and InBev, thousands of workers were laid off in St. Louis, Missouri, where the brewery was originally founded in 1852. The merger, which led to cost-cutting in the marketing department, also had a significant impact on the local ad agencies that had long worked with the company. When InBev moved the marketing department to New York City, the St. Louis advertising agencies were “decimated.”
The Daily Caller contacted AB InBev before publication.