Posted on 10/29/2025 12:26:16 PM PDT by Mariner
Republican senators on Tuesday railed against the administration’s plans to import more beef during a closed-door meeting with Vice President JD Vance.p>
Officials said last week they would allow Argentina to ship four times as much beef to the US as it previously did at a lower tariff rate. Ranchers immediately panned the move, as did the lawmakers who represent them: Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., warned “this isn’t the way to do it.”
Vance sought to “explain what the administration is thinking” in Tuesday’s meeting, one Republican senator in attendance told Semafor.
“There were a number that really expressed … why it’s important to put America first,” the senator said, summing up Republicans’ view as: “You just threw the ranchers out and caused the beef market to plummet. And you’re not going to get anything out of it. … It’s not going to change the price of beef.”
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
A betrayal of a significant part of the base, and of MAGA/America First political philosophy.
A healthy cattle industry is strategically important to the US. And additional imports on top of a struggling industry will do real, substantial damage.
The right answer is to not intervene in the high prices because cattlemen need them to keep their heifers off the feed lot and develop them as brood cows.
People are already not buying beef because it’s too expensive. If you lower costs, you bring more people back to buying beef. Not all protectionism is good. People who rail that the tariffs will be passed onto the consumer then go and scream that the local beef industry can’t compete unless we deny the consumer lower prices.
......do not intervene in the high prices of beef because cattlemen need those
high prices to keep their heifers off the feed lot and develop them as brood cows.
Man oh man......ya learn something new everyday.
If the ranchers cant get their beef to market, let Argentina ranchers do it.
That's free market.
After Saturday, there should be plenty of beef on the shelves.
It’s fine to buy beef and have trade with valuable western allies. Austrailia beef is good, it’s not like we’re buying it from North Korea or gasp/ China for a change.
no, please more high quality beef in this country please, and at a cheaper price, as it stands i can only go to fleming’s tomahawk tuesday once a month, i’d like to go weekly.
Ding! Ding! Ding! I’d say “Winner, winner, chicken dinner,”, but chicken is outrageous, too. Pork can be had cheaply. Maybe that’s because it’s loaded with mRNA. /tinfoil hat
I propose we remove some of the federal standards on meat processing. Some of it is ridiculous, like having an office for a USDA worker to always be on sight (forcing small meat processors to have the expense of a mega-processor), even if the UDSA inspector comes only periodically.
The long term solution is to form a Co-op owned by the producers that processes the beef so that the ranchers get more profit, while keeping costs lower.
I haven’t been able to afford a decent steak or roast for well over a year. Beef prices are way too high!
Address the choke hold by these four companies;Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef
Vance sought to “explain what the administration is thinking” in Tuesday’s meeting, one Republican senator in attendance told Semafor. So what is the admin thinking?
so far, president trump has been making the right decisions for 9 straight years now. i will trust his judgment on beef.
Isn’t it interesting how Trump / Vance promote tariffs, but the response to high beef prices is - import more.
Seems a contradiction.
Ranchers used to get about 70 cents for every consumer dollar spent on beef
Now its closer to 30 cents.
How about instead fixing the perverse oligopoly of 4 large corporate meat packers - who can afford the expensive myriad of USDA/FDA/OSHA rules, not to mention state regulations. All the while, small, mom-and-pop processors slowly disappear from the USA.
Vance hasn’t even been nominated and he keeps screwing up and has no answers.
I love Trump but he is well know for picking the wrong guys.
I think visionless, politician, another get-along-to-go-along Vance is the wrong Trump VP, the presumptive President elect in 2028 who if elected will probably be eaten alive by the Left and ousted in 2023, like GHW Bush was in 1992.
So far, Vivek is the only guy on the horizon with a VISION for extending and expanding TRUE MAGA.
Let the flaming begin.
Newer industries Impossible Beef and Beyond Beef are figuratively clearing their throats:
“This is where you guys need us! Try it, you’ll like it!”
they keep saying.
It is the Meat Packers that are the sole problem here as they need to be broken up under Anti-trust...they caused them mess.
I don’t know much about the micro economics of it but the macro economics is what Trump is concerned with. So I will defer to your knowledge.
The USA is NOT a free-market in beef. It's another leftist/progressive government-created and controlled oligopoly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.