The next time you purchase a locally produced craft beer, you may be shelling out more money, not necessarily for the cost of the ingredients in the beer, but for the aluminum cans.
Mark Lawson is the president of Zipline Brewing in Lincoln, Nebraska. He has more than 30 years of experience in the beverage industry and said that ongoing issues with international trade are costing his business more, which ultimately will be passed on to the consumer.
“In August, our cost went up by $4.10 per thousand cans,” he said. “That doesn’t sound like much, but when you are producing at the scale Zipline Brewing does, those costs add up. We are lucky that most of the raw ingredients used in our beers are sourced from the United States, so the cost increase on those items is negligible and not really affected by the current tariff situation.”
Lawson said that most of the aluminum in the United States is sourced from Canada. According to Reuters, at 3.2 million tons last year, imports of aluminum from Canada were twice those of the next nine countries combined.
“For the last couple of years, we have maintained our pricing because of the state of the economy, trying to protect our consumers,” Lawson said. “However, we are at a point now where we cannot afford to continue absorbing the costs, so the result will be higher costs at retail.”
If these costs continue to rise, Lawson said, he might have to incorporate a hiring freeze, or worse, cut jobs. Other businesses in the Tenth District also could be at risk.
Omaha Branch Executive Nate Kauffman tours Zipline with Mark Lawson, Zipline president.
Elevated trade policy uncertainty was recently researched by John McCoy, associate economist at the Kansas City Fed, for his July 2025 Economic Bulletin “Changes in International Trade Could Disproportionately Affect Employment in Pockets of the Tenth District.”
“As tariff policy was rapidly changing several months ago, I decided to first investigate how many jobs in our region were directly tied to international trade,” McCoy said. “So, before considering a particular tariff that may or may not be imposed, are people in our region exposed to international trade in the first place?”
During his research, McCoy discovered that although all goods producers are exposed to international trade to some degree, some are more exposed than others.
John McCoy, associate economist.
Kristie Briggs is a professor of economics specializing in international trade and economic development at Creighton University. She said the current state of international trade policies and tariffs has created uncertainty.
“Most economic theories suggest that uncertainty stalls prosperity and growth, so having a clear understanding of tariff rates and international trade policies that firms will face in the foreseeable future is paramount to U.S. markets running efficiently,” Briggs said.
She added that American firms are resilient, and in the long run producers will adjust to whatever market constraints they are faced with, but there will be shifts in production and industries to get there.
“Some producers will struggle to remain profitable and, as a result, close or shrink their operations,” she added. “Small- and medium-sized firms with fewer international ties and easily leveraged options for supply chain management are the most vulnerable when their profit margins shrink. On the other hand, large firms that are better able to absorb the higher costs of inputs resulting from the tariffs are often firms that face less competition and are more apt to pass higher prices on to the final consumer.”
Dr. Kristie Briggs, Creighton University.
McCoy summarized that trade is important to the production of goods and employment across the country, but when it comes to the Tenth District, fewer jobs will be affected by international trade.
“While this is uncertain at the moment, we might expect the effect in our region to be smaller than other regions across the country if impacts to labor were to materialize,” he said. For instance, some key industries in the region, such as farming, are less labor-intensive than agriculture jobs elsewhere, and employment in more trade-reliant industries—like transportation equipment manufacturing—is more concentrated in just a few communities.
Briggs said that the last time there was this much uncertainty around trade policies was when the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted in 1994.
“At that time, there was excitement around lower prices but also uncertainty around the agreement’s impact on domestic production, industries, and jobs,” she said. “Whether you are removing tariffs or putting them in place, the change will create uncertainty in the market. Eventually markets will adjust, and there will be a new set of ‘winners’ and ‘losers.’”
(L-R) Mark Lawson, Chris Hussey, Nate Kauffman
Meanwhile, Lawson at Zipline Brewing continues to forge ahead amid the uncertainty when he orders aluminum cans from Canada. He just hopes he doesn’t have to cut any positions as a result.
“It is crazy to think that when we are sitting in our Lincoln, Nebraska, brewery trying to plan out next year’s sales, we have to factor in macro-economics and discuss things like, ‘What’s the trade deficit with Canada looking like this year?’ but I guess it’s a sign of the times,” he said.