The Trump administration ramped up tariffs on steel and aluminum Wednesday from 25% to 50%, affecting imports from car parts to canned goods, including San Diego’s beloved craft beer industry.

San Diego businesses like Societe Brewing are bracing for the potential impact of the tariff hike on their bottom line. Societe’s VP of Brewing Teddy Gowan said Wednesday’s news that tariffs on steel and aluminum were increasing for the second time in three months raised questions about how much prices could go up for his business and their customers.

“We’re at stage one of a ten-step issue that we’re kind of working through,” Gowan said. “You hear an increase, but how does that actually come to us? And then how does that come to the consumer? It takes a little while for these things to come through the wash as well.”

According to the Beer Institute, a national trade organization, aluminum is the single largest input cost in American beer manufacturing. Tariffs during President Donald Trump’s first term cost the U.S. Beverage Industry about $1.7 billion, the institute said in 2023 following a report from the U.S. International Trade Commission.

San Diego County’s craft beer industry is made up of about 150 small businesses and craft brewers nationwide make up about 25% of the retail beer market, according to 2024 data from the Brewers Association.

Gowan said Societe Brewing has seen a $3 to 5% increase in costs since aluminum imports were raised to 25% in March but he’s still unsure how much more costs could spike due to Wednesday’s doubling. The business plans to talk to its suppliers to understand the state of their resources. Some suppliers prepared for tariffs in advance and bought imports ahead of time, which could soften any immediate blow but Gowan and his team are looking further into the future.

“We contract our stuff out for years and we contact on purpose so that we can lock in a price so we can understand how much it costs, so we can set a price to the consumer,” he said.

“With it being so volatile, it’s really difficult to actually make a plan around it that you can really be confident in. So all you can do is focus on other areas where you know that you can adjust costs, knowing that that cost is probably going to go up, but without knowing the actual number.”

Gowan said working in a volatile market isn’t really new for Societe — he business already had to work through the COVID pandemic. But it doesn’t make it any easier.

“From our perspective, we’re not seeing a lot of upside at the moment, aside from that it’s making us get better at our costing model because we have to be able to adjust it and be ready to adjust it.”

U.S. steel firms have hailed Trump’s renewed push to raise the cost to American firms that rely on imports of steel. It’s a notably favorable reaction to tariffs amid what has broadly been a backlash against them, NBC News reports.

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Investors have rewarded the steel firms accordingly, sending shares of U.S. steelmakers soaring across the board Monday as U.S. steel and aluminum prices jumped.

Today, the steel manufacturing industry directly employs 86,000 U.S. workers. It’s a fraction of the half million-strong workforce the industry counted in the decade after World War II, though employment levels have stabilized more recently, NBC News reports.

While trade globalization bears substantial responsibility for steel’s decadeslong downturn, experts tell NBC News advances in technology have played an equally significant role.

A study found that while Trump’s 2018 steel tariffs created 1,000 new direct jobs, it cost downstream industries that rely on steel to make their products as many as 75,000 jobs because they became less competitive thanks to higher costs, NBC News reports.

NBC News contributed to this report. Read the full story here.