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In its quest for a cheaper burger, the Trump administration has drawn the ire of ranchers across the country.
Cattle raisers are frustrated by recent decisions the Trump administration has made about their industry. That includes a plan to suspend tariffs for more than 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef over 90 days, and sell it below market price.
“We're very disappointed in that decision by the president,” said Cooper Little, executive director of the Independent Cattleman’s Association of Texas. “Whoever seems to be advising him or, I guess giving him the impression that this is going to reduce beef prices at the retail counter, we disagree.”
Beef prices have hovered around record highs for months. The average price for one pound of ground beef is $6.89, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. President Donald Trump, who’s floated the idea of upping beef imports before, has said that bringing those costs down is a priority.
“We want to get the beef prices down, so we’ll get them down a little bit. And that’s what people want, that’s what the voters want, and that’s what I want,” Trump said to reporters on Aug. 21. “The ranchers are great, they’re my people. I love the ranchers, they’ve done a fantastic job. But they admit we need a little help to get the prices down, so that’s what we’re doing.”
Little and others in the cattle industry are also frustrated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s choice to start accepting imported livestock from Mexico again for the first time since 2024. The first port reopened in Arizona on Monday.
Ports of entry on the southern border had been mostly closed to cattle and horses to slow the spread of the New World screwworm, a parasitic pest that poses a serious risk to livestock.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing to prematurely relax our important mitigation measures against this disease by phasing in border openings,” said Bill Bullard, CEO of the sheep and cattle producer group R-CALF USA. “We believe this is a mistake. We believe it's dangerous.”
The first U.S. screwworm case in years was reported on June 3 in Zavala County, Texas. The USDA has since reported another 45 cases between Texas and New Mexico.
New World screwworms were contained as south as Panama for decades, but started spreading northward toward the U.S. in 2022. They lay eggs in the open wounds of mammals, and the larvae then burrow into the animal’s skin. Serious infestations can be fatal.
Ranchers in counties where the pest is active must spend time and resources monitoring their livestock for infection or treating them. Plus, these areas are subject to extra regulations like movement restrictions.
Some ranchers feel that reopening the border to Mexican livestock unnecessarily risks further spread of the screwworm.
“It’s really unfortunate,” Little said. “The organization I represent and its members were very, very disappointed for a number of reasons, but primarily because of the animal health and safety risks that it burdens producers here on this side of the border.”
Reopening the border
The USDA is reopening the border to livestock in phases. If the port in Arizona goes smoothly, and if Mexico continues to make progress fighting screwworms, the agency then plans to open two more ports in New Mexico.
There are no plans to reopen ports in Texas at this time because of the high screwworm activity just south of its border, according to a USDA spokesperson.
USDA promised to bolster their screening measures for livestock crossing the border. That includes inspecting each animal individually at the crossing, and assigning them an electronic ID for tracking.
But Bullard is skeptical it will be enough.
“It is a mitigation measure to reduce the risk. It is not a measure that will eliminate the risk,” Bullard said. “The wound that a New World screwworm fly can lay its eggs into can be as small as a needle prick. And so visible inspection is not sufficient to eliminate the risks of introducing the fly.”
Bullard praised the USDA’s response to screwworm overall, however.
The Trump administration has committed billions of federal dollars to fight the pest. That includes developing new techniques and technologies, as well as producing more sterilized screwworms, which help suppress their population.
U.S. screwworm cases have gone down each month since their discovery in June. There were only two active cases as of Aug. 26, both in sheep from southwest Texas.
Although the Mexican imports make up a relatively small part of the U.S. cattle herd, the decision to keep them out financially hurt U.S. feedlots, where animals gain weight before slaughter, as well as meatpackers. That’s been exacerbated by the country’s decades-low cattle population.
“These tight supplies, our own domestic plus Mexican imports not being there, really put a lot of these cattle feeders really behind the eight ball,” said David Anderson, an agriculture economist at Texas A&M University.
Tyson, one of the country’s few major meatpackers, announced on Aug. 13 it would close some plants and shift schedules at others “to create a more competitive footprint amidst one of the most historic cattle shortages the country has ever experienced.”
Mike Deering, executive vice president of the Missouri Cattlemen's Association, said reopening the border to livestock could help reverse this trend. His group has confidence in the USDA’s decision to do so.
“I think that decision is going to normalize business for cattle operations throughout the border states and the southern Plains,” Deering said. “I don't have any complaints on how they have handled this.”
Bringing down beef prices
Deering was more critical of the Trump administration’s plan to import lower-tariff beef and sell it at a discount, however.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Aug. 21 that he’d “concluded a deal” to import ground beef that “will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.” He signed a proclamation to bring in the additional beef on Wednesday.
“This is market manipulation and it’s wrong and we’re fully opposed to it,” Deering said.
Additional details of the plan are scarce. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins would not say where the beef would come from when asked by reporters on Tuesday. The administration is considering additional policies to help calm ranchers’ concerns, Politico reports.
Taken together, agriculture economist Anderson said the additional imports of ground beef and Mexican cattle could eventually help lower beef prices for consumers, although by how much is unclear.
But significant rain in cattle country might help as much as any government intervention, Anderson said. Major beef cattle states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and South Dakota are all struggling with drought to various degrees.
“I think that’s the biggest factor holding cattle producers back from expanding, is drought conditions,” Anderson said.
Growing herds could help bring down beef retail costs and stabilize conditions for feedlots and meatpackers. Ranchers can’t do that if their pastures haven’t received enough rain to support more animals, though.
Sudden swings in policy, like the president’s recent announcement, also disincentivize holding onto cattle instead of selling them, said Deering of the Missouri Cattleman’s Association.
“When you add uncertainty in the marketplace, that really dissuades producers to want to expand or grow because they're waiting to see how everything shakes out,” he said.
Policy preferences
To help expand the country’s beef herd, Bullard, from the sheep and cattle group R-CALF, would prefer to see the government take on policies such as limiting beef imports into the U.S., mandating labels that show meat’s country of origin, and enforcing antitrust laws in the meatpacker industry.
Rancher advocates like Bullard have long called for closer scrutiny of the meatpacking business, most of which is controlled by four companies: JBS, National Beef, Tyson and Cargill.
“Our failure to enforce our antitrust laws, our pursuit of failed trade policies are what have caused our serious reduction in the size of our U.S. cattle herd,” Bullard said.
Little, with the Independent Cattleman’s Association of Texas, said he hoped the Trump administration would try to reduce reliance on imported beef as much as possible.
“We've got to become more secure with our supply and be able to produce it ourselves and not be dependent on cheap beef that is produced with subpar standards,” Little said.
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
