I’m catching up on the latest information from the White House and President Trump, and this interview is well worth watching.
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I’m catching up on the latest information from the White House and President Trump, and this interview is well worth watching.
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I remember reading about PDJT had, in November 2025, directed the Department of Justice to investigate these companies for potential price-fixing, collusion, and market manipulation. PDJT has been saying beef prices will be coming down too, soon. Has there been a lot of background work already accomplished?
Apparently there are 4 firms owning over 70 meat brands, dictating terms from ranch to grocery shelves.
With Attorney General Tood Blanche, Antitrust division Chief, Gail Slater and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins (USDA) and Peter Navarro’s voice on the issue; the probe will hopefully take care of security concerns about the foreign ownership of the packers. The Big 4, together slaughter roughly 85% of U.S. grain-fattened cattle. What a traversty!
Company HQ / Ownership :
JBS USA Brazil (parent: JBS S.A.) World’s largest meat processor
Cargill Minnesota, USA Largest U.S.-based food conglomerate
Tyson Foods Arkansas, USA Largest publicly traded U.S. meatpacker
National Beef Packing Brazil (parent: MBRF Global Foods) Owned by the 2025 merger of Marfrig and BRF.
All four companies have previously settled civil antitrust lawsuits over alleged beef price-fixing, and all have denied wrongdoing in the current probe.
A key point of emphasis from Secretary Brooke Rollins and the administration: two of the four are Brazilian-owned, which she framed as a national-security concern, not just an antitrust one. The DOJ is specifically examining whether the companies reached illegal agreements over how they purchase cattle from ranchers — including through contracts that reference a pricing benchmark some producers say is manipulated.
A related piece of the puzzle is the DOJ’s settlement with Agri Stats, a data company that the government alleged enabled anticompetitive pricing in the poultry, pork, and turkey sectors by aggregating competitors’ production and sales data into a “monopoly price” recommendation.
That case, which was set for trial in May, was resolved just days after the meatpacking probe was announced — and Blanche suggested it “directly affects” pricing in those other protein markets.