President Donald Trump announced today that import quotas on beef will be lifted for a period of 90-days in an effort to remove pricing stress on cattle and give U.S. ranchers an opportunity to restore herd head count.
The short-term effort is directed to lower consumer prices, while in the longer term the U.S. cattle industry undergoes market-based reforms to eliminate monopolistic industrial practices.
PRESIDENT TRUMP – “Today, I concluded a deal to substantially lower the price of ground beef for working American families. As everyone knows, under President Biden, beef prices soared at their fastest rate and the American beef herd fell to its smallest size in modern history. As we work to rebuild this herd and help our ranchers, for the next 90 days, the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out of quota tariff. We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices. This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” ~ President DONALD J. TRUMP
President Trump gave remarks about the issue during a tarmac presser en route to South Carolina. [PROMPTED]
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Massie is already screaming, but he owns a cattle operation in Kentucky so…
He screams at everything Trump does
I read elsewhere that the national cattleman association is not happy due to imported beef being brought in yet their herds are at low numbers.
Sounds like TDS symptoms.
Think a second….raising beef is a long term investment.
You market or sell whether large producer or small when the crop brings the best price. (At a certain weight/age target).
If your crop is ready inside the next 90 days plus then the feedlots will not be offering very much for your crop.
The only ones making a profit will be the large feedlots and meatpackers…..and do you trust quality controls on imported beef?
Next time you buy cheap hamburger over next 90 days ( and longer for most will arrive frozen) you will likely get tough old cow instead of prime beef.
This small producer will survive but don’t pee down my back and ask me to like it.
Playing into the hands of the big Ag guys once again.
The only incentive to increase herds is a stable and profitable market.
Thanks for your insights.
You are welcome John. There are always lots of sides to every story.
Regenerative farming and local meat packing would increase producer profits and lower consumer costs while increasing quality and elinating the big Ag feedlots and meatt packer middle men who pocket most of the profits in our artificial US meat market.
Right now local meat packing is expensive….because govt.
Executive Order: Advancing Regenerative Agriculture and Strengthening American Farm Resilience, June 25, 2026
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/06/advancing-regenerative-agriculture-and-strengthening-american-farm-resilience/
Cattle ranchers are FURIOUS over this.
Due diligence before condemning the ranchers.
I’d like a credible explanation as to why the herds haven’t at least partially recovered by now.
Because the droughts a few years ago and low prices put some ranchers out of business completely. Not a business you can build back quickly from scratch.
That makes sense.
Not to mention the gestation period of 283 days on average for beef cattle, plus 18-24 months before slaughter.
Then it doesn’t make sense that three months of importing possible disease infected beef will help the herds recover.
Wondering how things are doing, back at the ranch, oh, 7 miles NW of Crawford, Texas….
Bush ranch???
I remember those staged videos of Jr cutting brush by hand….yeah right.
It’s to help with the midterms…
The 90-day window is strategically aligned to lower visible grocery costs just before voters head to the polls in November.
Maybe but risks losing as many votes as gaining any….government should stay out of business in our republic. The American system doesn’t work if government makes business artificial.
I love our great President and what he has done and tried to do but it’s sometimes best to stay out of the kitchen and not listen to bad advice……
🎯
Beef has been climbing higher for last few years. Yes, part of the reason has been related to the herds being decimated by drought and other factors….but by now herds should have largely recovered. But they haven’t.
May this 90 tariff holiday will incentivize domestic cattlemen to start growing their herds. Yeah…it takes a few years, but the trend needs to turn around.
Meanwhile, maybe Ull see regular ground beef under $10 a pound soon 😎
If the real problem is the meat packers and grocery stores then having a bigger herd of cattle won’t fix the underlying problems.
Biden also slaughtered millions of chickens to reduce our food supply and drive up prices. The left in general has been deliberately and systematically killing the beef industry and driving up prices for many years
This is about one year overdue. Maybe more.
I saw ground beef for $11.99 per pound at a local grocery store. Cheap stuff was $7.99 per pound.
Don’t expect midterm enthusiasm from people paying those prices.
The Trump administration has done much that is good. VERY much. Sorry to say that ground beef has not been their strong point.
Just like $4 gas seems to be a psychological economic weathervane, so too is $10 a pound ground beef.
If both still exceed those limits come November, the GZoP could lose.
In my area, pork is still relatively cheap., cheaper than chicken sometimes.
I’m sure the 92% of cattle ranchers who voted for him are thrilled with this.
The government trying to control food pricing feels awfully communistic to me.
Aren’t the existing tariffs or imported beef evidence of government trying to control pricing? That is, keeping it high to “protect” domestic suppliers?
Just asking 😎
Those that push us around prefer us to dine on bugs.
Go to a restaurant in Brazil and you will see two prices for a beef steak. The lower price is for local beef. But it’s an extra 10% for the higher quality Argentinian steaks.
My brother n law is a beef producer, a rancher. He is not happy because the price of beef is high because of the beef packer houses. The ranchers are getting better prices at auction than a few years ago but the big bucks are being made by the 4 companies that control 85% of the meatpacking industry.
Tyson foods, Cargill, JBS and National Beef are making the big bucks.
Their combined total control of the beef industry prices are the biggest factor in high grocery store prices. Break up that monopoly and your prices at the grocery store will drop dramatically.
If more and more consumers buy their beef from private producers in the ranch direct to consumer market then maybe a change might happen?
I hate to think what a typical Sunday roast beef would cost these days.
Tyson is closing their Illinois and Utah meatpacking plants and has their Washington state one up for sale.
Prices of Charley beef in Europe this past summer has been lower than the US prices for the first time I can remember in 40 yrs. This Beef thing REEKS of manipulation by American processors of Beef. Farm producers have had to endure some problems in some areas of the US but Florida Grass Beef has had no problems yet prices have been increasing because of Processing and Packing house politics of BiG AG interest.
A vast majority of beef in the U.S. comes from Mexico and South America.
The only way to purchase American beef is online or local butcher shops.
Screw worms have infected Mexican beef and some South American beef yet it doesn’t seem to matter.
Most retailers will refuse to lower prices because they want Americans to suffer just like the fraudulent gas market.
Check out the price of bread at the stores. You would think there is a shortage of wheat in this Country. The problem is that ever since Covid, these Companies have gotten away with murder charging highway robbery prices for their product’s and they are not about to stop now.
How can you be so wrong and still respect yourself?
Less than 10% of beef sold in the US is imported.
And the 3 largest importers, in order, are Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil.
Screw worm was supposed to be stopped at the Darien Gap.
Sanjay, don’t know where you got your figures but less than 20% of beef sold in the U.S. originates in foreign countries.
I live in the Texas hill country and my whole family is involved in ranching.
That’s great news. Beef prices have been overpriced for 40 years and it’s about time for something to be done!
Deport 10-15 million illegal steak taco eaters and it should lower the price of beef. The problem is not all on the supply side.
Correct. Let them get their carne asada in the country they invaded us from.
I got no beef with that.
The first mis use of the commerce clause and the squash of the push back of New Deal involvement in farm production.
Supreme Court screws the Republic 101.
An Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed animals on his own farm. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production, based on the acreage owned by a farmer, to stabilize wheat prices and supplies.
(Govt messing with business…a dim govt…Roosevelt. )
Filburn grew more than was permitted and so was ordered to pay a penalty. In response, he said that because his wheat was not sold, it could not be regulated as commerce, let alone “interstate” commerce (described in the Constitution as “Commerce … among the several states”).
The Supreme Court disagreed: “Whether the subject of the regulation in question was ‘production’, ‘consumption’, or ‘marketing’ is, therefore, not material for purposes of deciding the question of federal power before us. …
But even if appellee’s activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’.”[2]
The Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, which permits the U.S. Congress “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”.
The Court decided that Filburn’s wheat-growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for animal feed on the open market, which is traded nationally, is thus interstate, and is therefore within the scope of the Commerce Clause.
(Think about that for a second…..remember this happened after the 17th amendment. )
Although Filburn’s relatively small amount of production of more wheat than he was allotted would not affect interstate commerce itself, the cumulative actions of thousands of other farmers like Filburn would become substantial. Therefore, the Court decided that the federal government could regulate Filburn’s production.[3]
Once again a large lurch away from our founders Republic and the nose under the tent for the Fed to step all over other businesses.
I give up. I was trying to post a “Where’s the beef” meme from the old Wendy’s commercial. (and I used to be a computer guy)…
From a dear friend in Copeland, KS, where drought has wiped out cattle feed.
“Those Tyson plants that are closing are moving production to Holcomb Kansas. Its all about cheap labor with contract foreign nationals on special visas. The UN has a program for Somali refugees, they rented literal blocks of apartments in Garden City long term and have buses hauling them to work. While Kansans are normally pretty easy going and tolerant , the absolute arrogance of some of those people cutting in line at stores and yelling at you in their native tongue when you protest is starting to wear pretty thin. I stay out of Walmart on Saturday so I don’t have to deal with them but the Mexican people who traditionally work in the packing houses are being pushed out for people who were literally pirates last year, so tension is building. Its a funny world, Wyatt Earp would never believe there is a Mosque in Dodge City Kansas.”………. send all those bastards back to Somalia and other points east…. damn the all.
Whaaaat???? Kansas here. Had no idea. Thank you for the post.
No words….Somalia invaded Kansas with the help of the UN while we were not watching….what the heck is next? Outrageous! *^%##%!!!!!@
“give U.S. ranchers an opportunity to restore herd head count”
A cow has a calf or two every year or two. So that is going to take some time and $.
Swine can have two litters of up to 10-12 piglets a year. Chickens lay an egg almost every day.
Those facts, as well as the middlemen, big ag monopolies, gov’t regs, etc. others have mentioned here already have all combined to result in the prices we are seeing.
One calf every year for every head cow…..if you experience no losses.
Last year I personally lost 2…..that smarted a bit.
Beef shortage, according one rancher and Ozzyman…
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1tABu0zlsAw
Here in southern middle TN, in a very ag county, the beef producers are unhappy with this decision. FYI, this county is very red.