Trump announces temporary pause of beef import tariffs in effort to lower prices ahead of midterms
Farmers and lawmakers have raised concerns over increasing foreign beef imports.
President Donald Trump announced on Friday that his administration has reached a "deal" to allow imports of up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef for the next 90 days, easing tariffs and claiming that it's part of an effort to lower the price of ground beef.
"[...] 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," Trump wrote in a social media post Friday morning.
A White House official reiterated that foreign beef exporters will provide a 25% discount on beef exports "to be passed along to American consumers" in exchange for tariff relief, though they did not disclose which foreign exporters were involved in the negotiations and in that commitment.
The official also told ABC News that the president will formally sign an executive order on the matter within the next two weeks.
This temporary easing of some beef tariffs, which the president said would span 90 days, would be in effect beyond the midterm elections, where grocery prices are top of mind for voters.
According to a recent Bureau of Labor and Statistics Report, beef and veal prices soared 9.4% last month compared to a year earlier. Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture also said the U.S. cattle supply had also reached a 75-year low while demand has continued to increase.
The president's announcement on Friday comes as farmers and ranchers continue to suffer domestically from high fertilizer and diesel prices as a result of the Iran war. But farmers and Republican members of Congress have previously raised concerns over increasing foreign beef imports, emphasizing the need to address high beef costs domestically.
The White House official said the administration is "simultaneously working with ranchers to expand domestic beef production" in the long term, calling Trump's announcement a "short-term" action to allow "foreign imports to fill a gap to meet domestic ground beef demand at affordable prices."
"This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again," Trump wrote in his Friday post.
The administration has previously made efforts to promote foreign beef imports. In February, Trump signed a proclamation temporarily increasing the U.S. tariff-rate quota for lean beef trimmings in an effort to make ground beef more affordable. The proclamation had allowed some lean beef trimmings to be imported tariff free.
The USDA is touting Trump's announcement on beef import quotas as demonstrative of his commitment to "lowering the cost of everyday goods for the American people" and saying this will "help address the affordability of beef."
Several Republicans from farm states have come out against the plan.
Republican Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy said on Friday that he has advised Trump "against this course of action for a year."
"... The reality is this action will make it more difficult for American ranchers to rebuild our herd and bring prices down for the American people. And most importantly, this will harm our ranching families who feed the nation," Sheehy wrote in a social media post.
Republican Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts who is up for reelection this fall, wrote in a social media post that "flooding the market with lower quality beef compromises Nebraska farmers and ranchers."
Colin Woodall, the CEO of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which represents America's cattle producers and beef industry, also criticized Trump's announcement, saying the move "sacrifices long-term stability for short term messaging."
Ethan Lane, the top lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which represents 180,000 cattle producers across 44 states, said the Trump administration's new plan to waive import tariffs for ground beef is frustrating farm state producers who voted for the president.
"We have a lot of frustrated producers today, a lot folks that feel like this isn't what they voted for," he told ABC News. "They voted for a president they thought was going to be giving them limited government and free markets and instead this feels very much like the heavy hand of government coming into their marketplace yet again in an effort to placate consumers or try to arbitrarily lower beef prices."
In talking to ranchers and other state officials after the announcement, Lane said he hasn't "talked to anybody" who "believes that it's a good idea or helpful for the supply."
"Since the announcement this morning from the president, we have seen down cattle markets across the board, more hits to producers' pocketbooks that they weren't looking for and weren't expecting," he said.
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