No Such Thing As Free Trade?

It's ironic that as Uncle Sam plants his big feet across the globe in search of an even greater share of the free trade market, that back in the good old USA, American politicians are climbing over each other to stop the sale of Anheuser-Busch to the Belgian-Brazilian brewing conglomerate InBev. You see you can have all the free trade in the world you like providing it doesn't include selling off America.

But hold on a sec, what is wrong with a little self interest? Over the past thirty years us Brits have seen all our familiar 'household' names from Bentley cars to HP sauce sold to foreign owned companies. Most of the time the sale has been greeted with barely a whimper, everything from electronics to electricity generation, water supply to wafer biscuits have been sold to overseas buyers. There have been times in the past where Britain has been so slow in developing new technology that we have fallen behind our competitors, look at the steel and shipbuilding industries as an example, but we still have some of the best engineers in the world, we still have three of the most highly respected engineering colleges in the world, so it's not all doom and gloom.

I can't think of a products, other than HP sauce or Colmans Mustard, owned incidentally by Unilever a British-Dutch company, that is as quintessentially British as 'Bud' is to America. Watch any American television programme or film and it's almost certain that the famous beer bottle will appear in at least one scene, it's not necessarily product placement, more subliminal heritage. CNN called the bid an outrage and said that if the board of Anheuser-Busch accepted the offer they would be selling off a piece of American history and that America was not for sale. That's the part of American history that takes it name from a city in Bohemia and which can't actually be called Budweiser in many countries of the world due to the copyright and tariff protections that exist!

Missouri governor Matt Blunt has sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, "asking for a federal review of the proposed sale of Anheuser-Busch Cos. to Belgian brewer InBev," says the AP. Blunt is concerned that allowing the maker of Becks and Stella Artois beers to buy the St. Louis-based brewery could create a "near monopoly" in the US beer market, and that it would damage the Missouri economy. And he has a point. If this were the U.K or the EU the monopolies commission would be jumping up and down bowing to public pressure before caving in and saying that there are other beers available and we should move on and they would be wrong to do so in my opinion. This isn't just about American tradition, it's not just about the end of beer brewing in St.Louis after 156 years, it's about the Number One and Number Three brewing companies in the world merging and cutting nearly 6,000 jobs as a result and one company dominating one product on a global basis.

Reuters reported on Thursday 26 June that the initial bid had been rejected and yet it seems certain that InBev will be back with a larger offer. There are rumours in the States that Anheuser-Busch are going to make themselves more attractive by purchasing the Mexican company that brews Corona beer, this will push up the asset value of the Bud brewers and therefore push up the share price and the bidding war will continue.

It is often claimed that we have more consumer choice than ever before, that may be the case in terms of products, but in terms of manufacturers we have less choice than ever before - how can it be good for the consumer if one company owns the three leading brands in one sector? It's not just InBev, look at Unilever's brand list - fancy some home cooking and don't want to use Blue Brand margarine (a Unilever company) then try Stork (another Unilever company), can't eat butter but don't like Flora (Unilever), then why not try I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (another Unilever company). I could go on about the lack of real choices in ice cream, peanut butter, mayonnaise, stock cubes, frozen foods, fish fingers etc but what would be the point - other than proving I'm good at composing lists.

I'm with CNN and Matt Blunt on this one, not for the flag waving rhetoric of the former but because of the job losses and lack of competition exposed by the latter. Of course in the end it won't matter, the board at InBev are like a teenage boy on his first serious date, they know there will be a lot of furtive foreplay and possibly a little pain and some tears but ultimately they won't be the ones getting screwed - that will be the public.