America’s largest trade association of cattle producers says President Donald Trump’s plan to lower beef prices is political theater.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents more than 175,000 cattle producers and feeders, said on Friday that the strategy would do more harm than good for the industry. Earlier that day, Trump said the US would allow up to 300,000 metric tons of beef to be imported with no out-of-quota tariff over the next 90 days.
“Today’s announcement is not about helping producers,” the association said on X. “It’s not about putting their finger on the scale for one cattle industry group or another. It is 100% about the 74 days between now and the midterm elections.”
In the same X thread, the association said that encouraging more beef imports undermines American cattle producers at a time when they’re making decisions about rebuilding their herd numbers for next year. The association also said the administration’s “repeated whiplash on trade policy and beef imports” directly affects rural cattle producers.
“US farmers and ranchers need stability,” the group said. “Unlike spur-of-the-moment trading decisions made based on White House social media posts, the decisions and investments ranchers make in their herds are made YEARS in advance, not days or weeks.”
In a separate statement, CEO Colin Woodall said the association was “disappointed.”
“Today’s announcement and other market interventions throw cold water on the prospect of herd expansion and sacrifices long-term stability for short-term messaging,” Woodall wrote.
In recent years, the industry has been bogged down by the high costs associated with raising cattle, a shrinking national cattle inventory, and land constraints due to ongoing droughts. As a result, beef has gotten pricey for everyday Americans at the grocery store.
That’s bad news for Trump, who made reducing costs and tempering inflation a central pillar of his presidential campaign. Many Americans still say they’re struggling to stay afloat amid rising gas prices, a stagnant real estate market, and high food costs.
That frustration could bubble up at the polls this November. This month, a report published by research marketplace Cint said that over half of the respondents ranked the cost of living as the top issue influencing their vote for the midterm election.
Other agriculture groups and some members of Trump’s base also criticized his plan to lower beef prices as a short-term solution.
In a statement on Friday, Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Stacy Simunek said letting “foreign beef products to essentially walk in our country’s front door and onto grocery store shelves threatens one of the few bright spots we have in agriculture: the prices we currently receive when we sell our beef cattle even as the cost of raising cattle increases.”
On X, Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy, who cofounded a ranch and beef company, said he advised Trump against the plan. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, himself a rancher, said flooding the market with imported beef hurts “farmers and ranchers who work every day to produce the best beef in the world” in an X post.
Good Ranchers, a distributor, said the strategy would put more pressure on cattle producers who are already facing challenges.
“The answer to that is not more cheap imported beef with lower standards competing against them on shelves with no country of origin label required to tell you the difference,” the company said on X.
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