Sherry Robinson
All She Wrote
Ranchers can finally take a deep breath and think about paying down long-term loans and rebuilding their herds because they finally caught a break on beef prices.
When the president told reporters on Air Force One that he was thinking about reducing beef prices by importing more beef from Argentina, he triggered an instant market reaction. Cattle futures dropped $9 overnight. It was a shock to cattle growers and threatened to undercut the first financial stability they’ve enjoyed in years.
The reaction from American producers was heated.
“This plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices,” said Colin Woodall, CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall said, “We know America’s families face challenges when food prices rise, but it’s important for President Trump to remember that farmers are facing an economic storm as well, and a vibrant U.S. cattle herd is at stake.”
On social media Trump responded: “The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% Tariff on Brazil. If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”
Shoppers and the president seem to think cattle growers have a bigger impact on the market than they actually do. Those high prices tell a story. Drought forced ranchers to reduce their herds. The federal government sharply cut imports of live cattle from Mexico because of the New World screwworm outbreak. And ranchers’ costs are up. They’re also at the mercy of a few meatpackers who set prices and take the lion’s share of profits.
Add strong demand to the mix.
I buy beef directly from a New Mexico rancher. When I asked her about all this, she was steamed that the president or anyone else thinks ranchers are getting rich. “It’s not like we control the price,” she said. “They (meatpackers) tell us what we’re going to get.”
She described years of drought in the state when everyone had to sell their cattle. That drove prices down. She has struggled ever since to rebuild her herd.
Ag economists say imports from Argentina won’t have much of an impact.
David Anderson, of Texas A&M University, told the High Plains Journal that just 2.1% of our beef imports come from Argentina. Most of U.S. beef imports come from Brazil, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and New Zealand. “We’re importing record amounts of beef already, and we still have record high prices,” he said.
So if that’s the case, why the beef over Argentinian imports? It’s because we begin with an unfair trade system in which gaping loopholes disadvantage American producers. As my own beef supplier explained, any imported beef that is sliced, trimmed or repackaged in the U.S. can be called a U.S. product.
This loophole would allow foreign suppliers and multinational meatpackers to flood the U.S. market with cheaper imports “while putting U.S. ranchers on the losing end and depriving American consumers of honest transparency at the meat counter,” wrote U.S. Cattlemen’s Association President Justin Tupper in a letter to Trump.
“Efforts to lower prices through artificially increased imports and opaque labeling run against ‘America First’ ideals,” he added.
The bottom line is that buying a little Argentinian beef increases the supply a bit but doesn’t really bring prices down for American consumers. The beef isn’t necessarily better, and its producers don’t meet U.S. standards of land stewardship. The gains are one-sided, and it’s not our side.
Remember a line that’s normally dear to Republicans: Let the market work.
“Eventually, ranchers will be able to expand their herds in response to these high prices, and then we will have less production, and they’ll get lower prices, and that’s really how this works,” said Anderson, the economist. “Particularly for cow-calf producers, it’s about time when we’ve had prices like this. They’ve gone through a lot of years of terrible prices, rising costs, lack of profits, and drought. This is the time that they get to recoup those losses. Let’s not screw this up.”
Sherry Robinson is a longtime New Mexico reporter and editor. She has worked in Grants, Gallup, the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Business Weekly and Albuquerque Tribune. She is the author of four books. Her columns won first place in 2024 from New Mexico Press Women.
