WASHINGTON — Early this week President Donald Trump said that he is looking to allow four times the normal quota of American purchases of Argentine beef as part of an effort to lower food prices.
The effort triggered backlash from American ranchers.
“Our cow calf producers, our ranchers are very upset with the notion that we maybe opening up or Argentinian beef to the US market,” Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana said in a phone call with NonStop Local’s Bradley Warren. “We have been communicating their concerns directly to the president.”
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said the president was undercutting American cattle producers.
Online and in press releases the association said the president’s move is “misguided” and that “efforts to manipulate markets only risk damaging the livelihoods of American cattlemen and women.”
“I have been on the phone with our ranchers in Montana, they are understandably upset,” Daines said, “I am very upset.”
The president defended his position and argued ranchers aren’t looking at his effort to increase Argentine beef imports in the context of his campaign to realign global trade.
“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,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said in a press release that during the past five years, Argentina has shipped beef valued at more than $800 million to the U.S., while purchasing only $7 million worth of U.S. beef.
“They have heard our voice loud and clear,” Daines said. “We don’t want to see Argentinian beef flooding into our markets.”
The senator pointed out that cow calf producers have been struggling for years and says this is a new and additional blow they don’t need.
“There is a reason why herds are down — they had to take them to market, and we need to let the free markets reset what’s going on in the cattle industry, and not flood the market with foreign beef,” Daines said.
Daines said the president has heard his concerns.
“If you start manipulating the market with imports it’s going to have the opposite effect end it could drive heard sizes down long term which would make the problem even worse,” Daines said.
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