Thank you President Trump.
According to https://alec.org/article/wheres-the-beef-regulatory-barriers-to-entry-and-competition-in-meat-processing-joe-trotter/ (from mid-2023):
As a result of the laws and regulations governing who can process meat for commercial consumption, there are high barriers to entry for small businesses looking to increase their market capacity. In order to have a full-time inspector or multiple inspectors on site, producers are required to furnish rent-free office space, laundry service, and other amenities for FSIS representatives.
Argentine rib eye steak dinner.
Sigh.
I think cattle ranchers understand that their livelihoods and successes are not a simple, “all so easy”, binary exercise.
They have costs - which they would prefer the government not have a hand in. They have situations - droughts, for example - that NO ONE can control. And ranchers (and farmers) also know that *foreign markets* have been a boon to their bottom lines... The US produces enough food to feed 2/3 of the world - and trade wars upset that pure, capitalist balance.
With a midterm coming up next year? This is just a self-inflicted own-goal.
Ranchers aren’t idiots. They know the score and they’re even willing to make near-term sacrifices for larger reasons.
But — essentially calling *supporters*, let’s face it: dumb or ignorant or unable to grasp?
SMH.
DJT really needs to stop with this kind of thing. I’m not a politician but I do enough to understand that you NEVER tell your supporters that you understand agricultural better than THEY do.
We’re talking about folks who have probably got literally generations under their belt owning and running herds.
This is a place where POTUS should listen twice as much as he talks.
Not being a rancher? I lean towards free trade. But - if I want to create policy (and I swerve away from my principle: Let the market decide) regarding cattle and beef? I’m going to *listen* twice as much as I talk.
Since Joe Biden was put in the WH, what used to be an $8 steak from a grocery store now costs $25. I surmise that roughly 50+% of the American people have been priced out of being able to afford to consume beef. I doubt that it’s the cattle rancher that’s getting rich.
I think most consumers understand the issue. It’s just that we’ve had it easy on prices due to being able to import beef INSTEAD of increasing domestic production.
Ranchers understand their business much better than a casino owner.
I think this is a Trump gut-post, like back when he talked about taking over Canada. He’ll “sober up” and clarify.
We need more cattle
Currently America is at a 73 year low
×e used to import Argentine beef on a regulaor basis. Quite a few American beef farms bought land in Argentina for raising beef because it was so much cheaper to do so, and the profit margins so much higher even after shipping.
Beef prices were much lower then. We could actually afford to eat on a very low income.
So Trump knows more about cattle ranching and ranch economics than actual cattle ranchers?
I can only expect they don’t understand his policies. What I really wonder is, does he?
Does anyone see a problem with an industry that must have a 50% protective tariff to be competitive? How about anyone that does not see how these tariffs are not raising our prices at the store?
Argentine beef is good but why and how can it be cheaper than US beef? Does anyone with two brain cells to rub together think that might be the real problem?
Obviously the drought has affected the production of grains used to feed cattle. Not much can be done about that. But it can’t be stressed enough that Biden’s reduction of oil pumping has played a huge roll as well. Agricultural fertilizers are a huge byproduct of the petro-chemical industry. Increased oil production under Trump will eventually alleviate fertilizer and fuel costs for farmers somewhat but oil will stay artificiallyhigher in the west as we increase sanctionson Russia over Ukraine. In turn grain costs will fall. But the problem of multinational corporations using domestically produced foodstuffs must be addressed. The American taxpayer has paid handsomely to keep farm products manageable but the corporations then ship it around the world to make more profit. America First should include lower prices for the American consumer on goods and services produced in America.
However, the Trump quote does look and sound like Trump.
Perhaps, if we weren’t being forced to turn most of the country’s corn into worthless, engine killing ethanol, feed prices would be way down, resulting in cheaper meat?
Ethanol made from corn is killing us in more ways than one.
Drill, baby, drill!
There are a lot of politics in this.
A large portion of Trump’s base is being hammered by high food prices, and not just beef prices. Regardless of Trump claiming there’s “no inflation”, or the reports from our own gov’t (which a former Obama official recently shredded - for all Administrations in the last few decades), food prices are insane. A lot of that is regs brought on by Obama and Biden, plus a few by Trump’s Administration during COVID. Then there is drought and falling water tables in much of Western USA, high labor costs, and so on.
Trump HAS to find QUICK ways to get food prices down, or the Pubbies (and him) are going to get toasted in the mid-terms. :-(