Americans angered by Trump’s plan regarding beef
The Chronify
U.S. President Donald Trump plans to import beef from Argentina, a South American country. His plan has angered American farmers, according to a report by Reuters.
Colin Woodall, Chief Executive of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, said on Monday (October 20) that Trump’s plan would only create chaos in the livestock sector and would not help reduce meat prices.
Earlier, on Sunday night, responding to reporters’ questions aboard Air Force One, Trump said, “If we buy a small amount of beef from Argentina, it will benefit them a lot.”
He added that beef prices in the United States have reached historic highs, so he is considering increasing imports to bring prices down.
Previously, the U.S. administration provided Argentina with $20 billion in currency-swap assistance. American farmers were already upset when Washington offered that economic support deal to Argentina, as China had started buying soybeans from Argentina instead of the United States at that time. Recently, Washington has fallen behind the South American nation in the competition to export soybeans to Beijing.
Rob Larew, President of the National Farmers Union, said, “Now rewarding them again by importing beef is absolutely the wrong thing to do.”
Jan MacDonald, a 78-year-old rancher from Montana, said, “I’m preparing to sell calves this week. The President’s plan makes me worried about the future.”
However, U.S. economists believe that importing beef in this way will not bring prices down. They said that additional beef imports from Argentina would not have a significant impact on U.S. prices, as the country supplied only about two percent of total U.S. imports last year.
They warned that increased imports of foreign beef could discourage local ranchers from boosting production. Derrell Peel, an agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University, said, “It takes nearly two years to raise a cow to market weight, so production cannot be increased quickly.”
Zippy Duvall, President of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said that if the market becomes flooded with foreign beef, it could pose a long-term threat to America’s food independence.
