Trump Says US Has “a Deal” to Lower Beef Prices

By Ryan Hanrahan

Bloomberg’s Skylar Woodhouse and Ilena Peng reported that “President Donald Trump said his administration had struck an agreement to bring down the price of beef for consumers during an event in the Oval Office on Thursday.”

“Trump didn’t provide details on what the federal effort entailed, but conceded that beef was one area where his efforts to fight inflation hadn’t paid enough dividends,” Woodhouse and Peng reported. “‘We are working on beef, and I think we have a deal on beef that’s going to bring the price’ down, Trump said. ‘That would be the one product that we would say is a little bit higher than we want it, maybe higher than we want it, and that’s going to be coming down pretty soon too. We did something, we worked our magic.'”

“The president’s comments came days after he hosted Argentinian President Javier Milei at the White House to discuss trade and financing to help bolster the country’s economy,” Woodhouse and Peng reported. “The US is a major importer of Argentine beef, though shipments are subject to an annual quota before expanded tariffs kick in.”

Reuters’ Tom Polansek, Trevor Hunnicutt and Costas Pitas reported that “beef prices have climbed to record highs after cattle ranchers slashed their herds due to a yearslong drought in the western United States that dried up lands used for grazing and raised feeding costs. By the beginning of the year, the herd had dwindled to 86.7 million cattle, the smallest number for the time period since 1951, according to U.S. government data.”

“Supplies tightened further this year after the U.S. Department of Agriculture halted imports of Mexican livestock to keep out a damaging pest spreading in Mexico. Mexican cattle were formerly imported to be fattened in U.S. feedlots and slaughtered in U.S. processing plants,” Polansek, Hunnicutt and Pitas reported. “Tariffs that Trump imposed on Brazilian goods have also slowed U.S. imports of Brazilian beef that was mixed with U.S. supplies to make hamburger meat.

USDA Developing Plan to Revitalize Beef Cattle Herd

Reuters’ Leah Douglas reported at the end of September that “the U.S. Department of Agriculture is developing a plan to revitalize the decimated U.S. beef herd, but will not offer payments to producers, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Thursday.”