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Posted on 08/22/2026 7:58:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
President Trump announced Friday that the U.S. will wave through 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef over the next three months with the out-of-quota tariff switched off, and that "this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices."
Sold by whom went unmentioned. Shipped from where, likewise. Which foreign exporters agreed to any of this is a question the announcement left for later, along with the executive order itself, which the White House says arrives within 2 weeks.
Ground beef hit $6.885 a pound in July, an all-time high and 83% above where it sat in 2017. Take a quarter off and you are at $5.16, which is a genuine improvement and also the going rate in 2023. Relief has become relative.
The cattlemen (who are ostensibly the point of all this) made it to lunchtime before turning on him. National Cattlemen's Beef Association chief Colin Woodall pronounced himself "disappointed," warned against "flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef," and pointed out that cattle prices had already fallen sharply that morning. They had. The Great American Beef Herd, so capitalized by the president, took a loss before the announcement finished circulating.
Beef costs what it costs because there are very few cows. Drought, feed bills that would trouble a hedge fund, and a decade of ranchers cashing out breeding stock have left the American herd at its smallest since the Eisenhower administration.
A waiver does not restock a pasture because cattle take years to reach a grill and ranchers expand only when they trust that prices will hold, so cheap imported trimmings arriving 10 weeks before an election is a strange way to build that trust. Groceries are on the ballot in November. The cows are incidental.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
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USDA better be inspecting all of that two or three times over!
“ A waiver does not restock a pasture because cattle take years to reach a grill and ranchers expand only when they trust that prices will hold, so cheap imported trimmings arriving 10 weeks before an election is a strange way to build that trust. ”
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All true! Markets WORK! Market prices (i.e., true market prices) are the signals for producers to either increase production, stick with current production or reduce production.
Just like “it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature” it’s not wise to mess with markets.
I remember a big cull during the early days of Covid. Sometime in April or May(?) of 2020. It was in the news but I never saw/don’t remember an explanation for it.
Everyone needs to ask: Why can’t/won’t American farmers raise more cattle?
The answer comes down to GOVERNMENT, at so many levels, with so many different policies, and their unintended consequences, are disincentivizing American farmers to actually feed people.
And there are very few cows because farmer's real returns are still very low
Farmers raising cattle face a system of a very small oligopoly of processors, based on a manipulated financial futures market in the hands of speculators and Wall Street.
And this hairball system is formed and protected by government - EPA, USDA, FDA, IRS, etc..
How much is beef selling for in Buenos Aires?
This Administration has endlessly asserted that tariffs are a cost only to the countries exporting goods to us.
The dropping of beef tariffs TO BENEFIT U.S. CONSUMERS is a staggeringly blunt concession that it is AMERICANS who pay tariffs for imports.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/02/26/latam-argentina-beef-prices-rise/5331772121950/
big time!
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/05/economy/companies-got-tariff-refunds-wheres-your-cut
apparently:
$2 billion > Apple
$2.9 billion > Walmart
Wrong.
Government policies on beef product have not measurably tightened in recent years.
The only significant changes have been tighter standards for “Country of Origin” label and better recordkeeping to track beef from producers to stores.
The government has increased access to federal lands, expanded disaster relief, and expanded the USDA’s Risk Management Agency, which provides crop insurance.
Ranchers have benefited.
“very few cows”
cows ~> milk (some beef)
bulls > beef
Milk doesn’t appear to be in short supply
Right.
Refunds did not go to Chinese or Mexican or Italian exporter, BECAUSE FOREIGNERS DIDN’T PAY TARIFFS.
American importers did.
Brazil owns large swathes of acreage, processing operations. A concern.
Per AI...
“Congress repealed the mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) requirements for beef and pork on December 18, 2015, when President Barack Obama signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016.”
That said, we need to bring it back.
Brazilians control two of the Big Four beef processors.
But the concern shouldn’t be on the nationality of the Big Four but rather that there IS a Big Four that can dominate the industry. These four outfits control 80-85% of all US beef processing.
I’d welcome the government to bust up this oligarchy by enforcing anti-trust laws.
“Why can’t/won’t American farmers raise more cattle?”
Drought.
That is what a rancher friend of mine is experiencing. He’d LOVE to increase the number of calves but the drought in the west (Utah) has kept many of his cows from delivering a calf. Only about 50% calved this spring.
It isn’t always the government.
Bullsh**! I have a front-row seat.
lack of local slaughterhouse capacity, due to inability to expand due to environment, water, land regs (state and fed), lack of labor, FDA regs on interstate transport. Purchases based on futures in the hands of specs. Terrible returns to farmers (at least until very recently) even with ever-declining herd size
So much for America First.
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