[R-G] Meet the King of Beers: John McCain and Latin America

[Anthony Fenton]

Weekend Edition
June 7 / 8, 2008
http://counterpunch.com/kozloff06072008.html
Meet the King of Beers
John McCain and Latin America

By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

As the presidential campaign heats up the media has failed to analyze  
John McCain’s ties to corporate America and in particular to the beer  
industry.  Anheuser-Busch, the nation’s largest beer producer, has  
proven highly instrumental in McCain’s rise on the political stage.   
McCain’s wife Cindy was the daughter of a multimillionaire Anheuser- 
Busch distributor and her beer earnings have afforded the Arizona  
Senator a wealthy lifestyle including a private jet and vacation  
homes.  In the early years of McCain’s Washington career, Anheuser- 
Busch's political action committee was among the Senator’s donors.   
Though McCain's fundraising base is now far broader than his family  
bank accounts and Anheuser-Busch, executives from the company have  
been important and longtime supporters.

Though Anheuser Busch is most known for its domestic beers such as  
Budweiser (which some ridiculously refer to as the “King of Beers”),  
the company has also become something of an international player.  For  
example, Anheuser-Busch has a stake in Mexico’s largest brewer, Grupo  
Modelo, which makes Corona, Negra Modelo, and Pacífico.  Since the  
mid-1980s, the company has had particular success in the United States  
with Corona, a light-tasting beer -- often served with a wedge of  
fresh lime -- that became popular with many young adults.

For Modelo, a strong incentive for entering the deal with Anheuser- 
Busch was the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA: under the  
accord, U.S. import duties on Mexican beer were eliminated.  As a  
Senator, McCain has been a big booster of economic globalization which  
has made consolidation of the beer industry possible.  The Republican  
presidential hopeful supports NAFTA and has in fact assailed Barack  
Obama for his criticism of free trade.    According to labor unions,  
NAFTA has cost the U.S. at least one million jobs, a fact of little  
apparent concern to the Arizona Senator.  Though the agreement has led  
to a social and ecological disaster in Mexico, McCain does not support  
special provisions which would protect workers and the environment.   
In recognition of his efforts, the right wing Cato Institute gave  
McCain a 100% ranking when it came to promoting the free trade agenda.

McCain, IRI and Anheuser-Busch

On Capitol Hill, McCain has long opposed Third World governments which  
seek to contest corporate supremacy and free trade.  Since 1993,  
McCain has chaired an outfit called the International Republican  
Institute (IRI).  The group, funded by U.S. taxpayers and private  
money, bills itself as non-partisan and claims to promote democracy  
world-wide.  On the surface at least, IRI seems to have a rather  
innocuous agenda including party building, media training, the  
organization of leadership trainings, dissemination of newsletters,  
and strengthening of civil society.

In reality however the IRI serves as an instrument to advance and  
promote the most far right Republican foreign policy agenda. More a  
cloak-and-dagger operation than a conventional research group, IRI has  
aligned itself with some of the most antidemocratic factions in the  
Third World.  In Haiti, IRI helped to fund, equip, and lobby for the  
country’s two heavily conservative and White House-backed opposition  
parties, the Democratic Convergence and Group 184. The latter group,  
comprised of many of the island's major business, church and  
professional figures, was at the vanguard of opposition to Jean  
Bertrand Aristide prior to the Haitian President's forced ouster in  
2004.  In Venezuela, IRI generously funded civil society groups that  
were militantly opposed to the Chávez regime.

Significantly, Anheuser-Busch has donated tens of thousands of dollars  
to IRI.  On a certain level the brewing company’s financial support is  
not very surprising.  If it can avoid it, the company would  
undoubtedly like to turn back the tide of so-called Pink Tide regimes  
which have come to power in recent years.  As I explain in my current  
book Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave- 
Macmillan 2008), nationalistic governments from Venezuela to Brazil to  
Argentina have opposed the creation of President Bush’s corporately- 
driven Free Trade Area of the Americas.

McCain, Anheuser Busch and CAFTA

Hoping to outflank hostile left wing regimes in the region, the Bush  
White House has been busy over the past few years hammering out free  
trade agreements with more conservative governments.  In 2005, the  
U.S. Congress passed the Central American Free Trade Agreement or  
CAFTA, which cuts tariffs among the United States, Costa Rica, the  
Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Having reaped maximum gain from NAFTA, Anheuser-Busch is likely to  
benefit from an expansion of corporate-driven free trade in Central  
America.  In Honduras, Anheuser-Busch introduced Budweiser in 2006.   
The following year, Heineken announced that it had reached an  
agreement with Anheuser-Busch to produce and market Budweiser in  
Panama.  The production and bottling of Budweiser in the tiny Central  
American nation is a major achievement for the company, as it provides  
a starting point for expanding the brand to other markets in the  
region.  What’s more, under CAFTA U.S. beers will be able to enter  
Central America duty free by 2015.  The beer industry hopes that CAFTA  
will spur increased per capita consumption, particularly in countries  
like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, thus leading to greater  
profits.

McCain has been an important backer of CAFTA and voted for the  
agreement in the Senate despite the fact that the deal, modeled after  
NAFTA, does not contain adequate environmental or labor protections.

Not only does McCain support CAFTA but he also wants to expand free  
trade to other governments throughout the region.  Despite Colombia's  
status as a human rights and labor nightmare, the Senator backs a  
pending trade deal with the Andean nation.  McCain’s lobbying on  
behalf of the Colombia deal stands to benefit his political benefactor  
Anheuser-Busch: in February, 2006 the company introduced Budweiser in  
the Andean nation.

Touting the virtues of mediocre Budweiser, Esteban Amoia, a regional  
marketing manager for Anheuser-Busch International, remarked that  
“Budweiser has exceeded expectations in Colombia…and there is a  
growing demand for the brand's clean, crisp and refreshing taste."   
Encouraged by Budweiser’s success in Colombia, Anheuser-Busch is now  
marketing Bud Light.  Amoia added that the beer could “become the  
brand of choice for young, fun-loving men and women who are on the  
move."

 From his earliest days as a politician, McCain has eagerly enmeshed  
himself in an insidious political web with Anheuser-Busch.  If it  
weren’t for Cindy McCain and her beer money, the Arizona Senator might  
not have achieved great political power in the Senate.  In exchange  
for Anheuser-Busch’s support, McCain looks out for the beer company’s  
long-term interests abroad.  Truly, it might be said that the Arizona  
Senator is the “King of Beers” in Latin America.

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the  
Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan)