New Report Reveals the Foreign Owners Who Quietly Control Half of American Beer

American beer drinkers have had a rough few years since Bud Light turned on them with their Dylan Mulvaney stunt before correcting course when sales imploded.

Of course, it was far from the only proud, patriotic, red white, and blue American beer out there supposedly.

But now a new watchdog report just exposed the startling reality that foreign owners who quietly own half of American Beer.

CEO Michel Doukeris Got Caught Picking Sides

Consumer Action for a Strong Economy dropped a bombshell report Thursday.

President Trump's tariffs on Canada set off a firestorm with Ottawa last year.

AB InBev's response was not to stand with the president.

The company launched a "Made in Canada" ad campaign celebrating its Canadian workers and Canadian barley.

CEO Michel Doukeris let that campaign run while his other ads told American shoppers something different.

Here at home, Doukeris runs "Choose Beer Grown Here" commercials dressed up like small-town America.

CASE says both campaigns come from the same company, and only one of them is true.

"The company's corporate headquarters are located in Leuven, Belgium, not in middle America like their advertising would have you believe," the report states.

Doukeris did not build that Belgian headquarters.

He inherited it when AB InBev bought Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion back in 2008.

Thousands of St. Louis workers lost their jobs in that deal.

The ad agencies that had served the brewery for generations got wiped out right along with them.

Doukeris was already running the company when Kid Rock helped light the fuse on the Bud Light boycott in 2023.

Bud Light lost its crown as America's top-selling beer to Modelo within weeks.

AB InBev's own numbers show North American revenue collapsed by $1.4 billion that year.

Three years later, Bud Light still sits in third place behind Modelo and Michelob Ultra.

Doukeris keeps telling investors a turnaround is coming any quarter now.

Now He Wants Trump To Hand Him a Tax Break

CASE says AB InBev is already lobbying states to kill sales taxes on its products.

The report warns Doukeris plans to take that fight to Washington next.

He is picking his moment carefully.

President Trump is renegotiating America's entire trade relationship with Canada and Mexico right now.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer refused to rubber-stamp a USMCA renewal this week.

Greer said the deal will not be extended "in its current form."

That is exactly the fight Doukeris wants to exploit for a federal tax break on "American beer."

CASE says nearly half of that break would flow straight to his Belgian company.

The same executive who ran Canadian pride ads during a tariff war wants Americans to subsidize him as one of their own.

Washington has caught this company playing both sides before.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal grilled former CEO Carlos Brito over AB InBev's $107 billion SABMiller merger back in 2015.

"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," Blumenthal said at the hearing.

Even the Justice Department forced AB InBev to sell off Modelo's U.S. rights in 2013 just to head off a monopoly.

CASE says that settlement never touched the real problem.

Small Brewers Pay the Price for Doukeris's Empire

AB InBev pushes distributors to prioritize its own brands over independent competitors, according to the report.

Small brewers in many states are legally barred from delivering their own beer to stores.

Doukeris benefits every time a local brewery gets boxed out of a distributor's warehouse.

CASE says American craft brewers still grew from 4,803 in 2015 to 9,578 in 2025 despite that playbook, not because of it.

That is the same system Doukeris now wants Washington to reward with a tax break.

America is about to celebrate its 250th birthday with a cold one in hand.

CASE says the last thing policymakers should do is hand a victory to a foreign conglomerate that does not play by American rules.

Trump built his entire trade agenda around putting American workers and American companies first.

A tax break that mostly benefits Doukeris while his company plays both sides of the tariff fight makes a mockery of that promise.

Congress should ask him directly why he gets to wave the American flag in every commercial while cashing in on whichever flag pays better that quarter.

He built his American image on an icon his company bought, gutted, and sold back to the customers it left behind.

Lawmakers have a chance to end that con before Americans raise another Budweiser to celebrate the country Doukeris only pretends to call home.

Sources:

• John Loftus, "EXCLUSIVE: New Report Warns Of Foreign Stranglehold On American Beer Market," The Daily Caller, July 3, 2026.
• Cameron Arcand, "Trump Admin Will Not Renew USMCA Amid Trade Disagreements," Townhall, July 1, 2026.
• United States Trade Representative, "American Farmers, Ranchers, Manufacturers, and Businesses Applaud President Trump for Not Rubber Stamping the USMCA," USTR.gov, July 2026.
• Alicia Park, "Bud Light Boycott Effects Endure – Brand Drops To Third," Forbes, July 18, 2024.
• Mercatus Center, "Trouble Brewing? Brewer and Wholesaler Laws Restrict Craft Breweries," Mercatus Center, September 15, 2016.