--- title: Americans Are Buying More Foreign Alcohol Than Ever Before description: The strong U.S. dollar has give wholesale importers more buying power, increasing U.S. sales of Mexican beer, Irish whiskey, Italian wines, and more. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2017-02-07T15:18:40.000Z' modified: '2024-05-16T12:12:37.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - Alcohol - Beer - import tax - imports - liquor - trump - U.S. Dollar - wine word_count: 343 canonical: https://money.com/alcohol-import-sales-us-strong-dollar/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Tax On Beer Considered To Help Pay For Health Care](https://img.money.com/2017/02/alcoholimports-em-87884677.jpg) America first? That hasn't been the case lately when it comes to booze. The surging strength of the U.S. dollar means that wholesale importers have been paying cheaper prices for foreign alcoholic beverages making for higher American consumption of alcohol that's not homegrown. The [*Wall Street Journal*](https://www.wsj.com/articles/make-mine-a-double-strong-dollar-boosts-foreign-booze-sales-1486463420) reported on Tuesday that alcohol imports in the U.S. rose 6% last year, reaching $17 billion through the first 11 months of 2016. Once the final numbers are tabulated, 2016 will likely go down as the biggest year for alcohol import sales in more than two decades. Meanwhile, sales of domestic alcoholic beverages—California wines, Kentucky whiskeys, numerous craft beer brands, and more—were up a mere 2% last year, representing the slowest growth in four years. At first glance, you might assume that American consumers have been buying more imported alcohol because prices have dropped. Oddly enough, that's not the case. While wholesale prices for imports have retreated by way of the stronger U.S. dollar, these savings have not been passed along to customers in the form of cheaper French wines, Mexican beer, Irish whiskey, and such. "For the most part, the stronger dollar hasn’t yet translated into cheaper alcohol for the American consumer," the [*Journal*](https://www.wsj.com/articles/make-mine-a-double-strong-dollar-boosts-foreign-booze-sales-1486463420) noted. If cheaper prices aren't driving Americans to sip more imported alcohol, what is? Apparently, we're hitting the foreign-made hooch more because the wholesales have significantly increased *what* they're bringing into the U.S., resulting in a bigger supply and better selection in stores. That seems to be a key reason why, for example, Irish whiskey sales in the U.S. were up 16% last year. If the Trump administration has its way, however, Americans could shift back to domestics soon enough. Among the strategies being pushed by Trump's ["buy American"](http://theweek.com/speedreads/669936/trump-swears-administration-only-buy-american-hire-american) and ["America first"](https://time.com/4273812/america-first-donald-trump-history/) campaigns is the possibility of a 20% import tax on Mexico and perhaps other countries. Such a tax would obviously push prices higher for wholesale importers, and some portion of the price hike would likely result in a smaller selection and higher prices for imports on liquor store shelves. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/alcohol-import-sales-us-strong-dollar/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Economy", "item": "https://money.com/economy/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Americans Are Buying More Foreign Alcohol Than Ever Before" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/alcohol-import-sales-us-strong-dollar/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/alcohol-import-sales-us-strong-dollar/", "name": "Americans Are Buying More Foreign Alcohol Than Ever Before", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2017-02-07T15:18:40.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/alcohol-import-sales-us-strong-dollar/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/alcohol-import-sales-us-strong-dollar/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-05-16T12:12:37.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Americans Are Buying More Foreign Alcohol Than Ever Before", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2017/02/alcoholimports-em-87884677.jpg", "width": 3000, "height": 2021, "caption": "Tax On Beer Considered To Help Pay For Health Care" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2017-02-07T15:18:40.000Z", "description": "The strong U.S. dollar has give wholesale importers more buying power, increasing U.S. sales of Mexican beer, Irish whiskey, Italian wines, and more.", "abstract": "The strong U.S. dollar has give wholesale importers more buying power, increasing U.S. sales of Mexican beer, Irish whiskey, Italian wines, and more.", "@id": "https://money.com/alcohol-import-sales-us-strong-dollar/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-05-16T12:12:37.000Z", "wordCount": 343, "keywords": [ "Alcohol", "Beer", "import tax", "imports", "liquor", "trump", "U.S. Dollar", "wine" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Political economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy" ] } ] } ] } ```