Trump Picks the Wrong Beef Before Midterms

Trump's Beef Import Plan Angers Agricultural Sector Before Midterm Elections

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Analysis:

Trump Picks the Wrong Beef Before Midterms

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Analysis

Trump Picks the Wrong Beef Before Midterms

The president’s plan to tame soaring beef prices has alienated a key constituency.

By **Christina Lu**, a staff writer at *Foreign Policy*.

!Cattle are herded in a stable in Hamilton, Texas.

*Cattle are herded in a stable in Hamilton, Texas.*

Cattle are herded in a stable in Hamilton, Texas, on June 5. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

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September 15, 2026, 2:49 PM

With less than two months to go before high-stakes midterm elections, U.S. President Donald Trump is facing fierce—and rare—blowback from a key constituency and Republican lawmakers alike.

The U.S. agricultural sector has been in an uproar over Trump’s recently announced plan to boost imports of ground beef at a reduced tariff rate, part of a broader effort to drag down record beef prices. Ground beef prices surged yet again in August, powered by tight supplies and continuously strong demand for the staple meat. The plan, which was announced last month, would see 300,000 metric tons of lean beef trimmings enter the country for 90 days. It comes as the sector reels from surging energy and fertilizer prices, ongoing trade whiplash, and sweepingcuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

With less than two months to go before high-stakes midterm elections, U.S. President Donald Trump is facing fierce—and rare—blowback from a key constituency and Republican lawmakers alike.

The U.S. agricultural sector has been in an uproar over Trump’s recently announced plan to boost imports of ground beef at a reduced tariff rate, part of a broader effort to drag down record beef prices. Ground beef prices surged yet again in August, powered by tight supplies and continuously strong demand for the staple meat. The plan, which was announced last month, would see 300,000 metric tons of lean beef trimmings enter the country for 90 days. It comes as the sector reels from surging energy and fertilizer prices, ongoing trade whiplash, and sweepingcuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the country’s largest agricultural lobby, blasted the move as a “gut punch to ranchers’ bottom line.”

Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis also heaped on the criticism. “If you think that providing subsidized beef for some period of time is going to make farmers happy and prices go down on a systemic basis, you’re wrong. Doesn’t happen,” he told reporters last month.

As midterms loom, that backlash could prove consequential.

“We’ve got 71 days” until the election, Tillis added at the time, “and right now we don’t have a positive message to tell farm country.”

“The farming community has proved it’s willing to tolerate a fair amount of indignity and injury, but there’s only so much they can take before they revolt,” Christopher Barrett, an agricultural economist at Cornell University, told *Foreign Policy*.

---

Beef prices

have reached

record heights in large part because there are so few cattle in the United States.

The size of the U.S. cattle herd has shrunk to a 75-year low as the sector has confronted compounding financial challenges. For ranchers, the combination of surging input costs, market headwinds, and climate challenges has meant that it has been more profitable to sell their animals rather than raising them for breeding.

“The fundamental reason why beef prices are high in the United States right now is that the cost of beef production has gotten very high and therefore ranchers have reduced the aggregate herd size,” Barrett said. And 300,000 metric tons of beef “of unknown origin and quality does absolutely nothing to address the underlying structural supply-side issue.”

Higher cattle prices typically incentivize producers to rebuild their herds. But that takes time. Animal production typically works in cycles, and the one for cattle lasts about 10 years, said Elliott Dennis, an agricultural economist at the University of Missouri. Cows birth one calf at a time, which means that when a producer does decide to retain animals and rebuild their herds, it takes years to do so.

Further complicating the matter has been the spread of the New World screwworm, the flesh-eating parasite that has infected cattle in both the United States and Mexico, whose imports typically account for around 3 percent of the U.S. cattle supply. The Trump administration closed the U.S.-Mexico border to cattle imports last year in an effort to contain the screwworm, although it reopened an Arizona border crossing in August to help ease beef prices.

In some regions, punishing drought and wildfires have also parched grazing land, with devastating implications for producers. Nearly three-quarters of the U.S. cattle herd was impacted by drought conditions this spring, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported in May.

Read More

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