Carlos Brito, InBev chief executive, failed to assuage Washington politicians’ concerns on Tuesday about the Belgian brewer’s unsolicited $46.3bn bid for Anheuser-Busch, with one US senator saying opposing the deal was a “patriotic” thing to do.

Claire McCaskill, the junior Democratic senator from Missouri, where the US beer company is based, said after a meeting with Mr Brito that she would do everything she could to stop the deal from moving forward.