BS BULLETIN:
- President Trump heads to cattle-heavy Nebraska Monday to campaign for Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts.
- Trump’s push to bring in more foreign beef to lower grocery prices has angered some Nebraska ranchers.
- Even Ricketts is publicly telling the White House to change course: “The plan to import low-quality foreign beef is not helping Nebraska ranchers.”
President Donald Trump is heading into deep-red Nebraska Monday to help a Republican senator win reelection.
There’s just one awkward subject waiting for him when he arrives.
Beef.
Trump is scheduled to campaign in Grand Island with Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts as part of his final midterm push.
Ricketts is facing independent Dan Osborn, a former union leader who lost a 2024 Senate challenge to Republican Deb Fischer by roughly seven points and is trying again this year.
The political reason for Trump’s trip is straightforward.
The agricultural politics surrounding it aren’t.
Nebraska is one of America’s great cattle states, and Trump’s effort to bring down stubbornly high beef prices by allowing substantially more foreign beef into the United States has generated resistance from some of the very ranchers who have otherwise supported his agenda.
Trump’s goal is lower prices at the grocery store.
Ranchers worry that increasing foreign supply will accomplish that partly by pushing down the prices American cattle producers receive.
And Ricketts isn’t keeping his disagreement with the White House private.
“The plan to import low-quality foreign beef is not helping Nebraska ranchers,” Ricketts told the Associated Press.
“I would advise the White House to change that policy and look for longer-term things that will help us build the size of the herd and ultimately bring the price of beef down for consumers.”
That tension has been building for weeks.
The administration announced plans in August to import as much as 300,000 metric tons of additional foreign beef trim as it searched for ways to bring down consumer prices.
Nebraska rancher Jaclyn Wilson subsequently told Fox News that producers were already feeling the market volatility.
Wilson said one group of yearling steers sold shortly after Trump’s announcement brought approximately $175 less per animal than comparable cattle sold before it.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has defended the administration’s broader approach while acknowledging the concerns of cattle producers.
Part of the problem is simply arithmetic — and cows aren’t particularly interested in Washington’s election calendar.
The American cattle herd has fallen to historic lows after years of drought, high costs and herd reductions.
Rebuilding it takes years.
Consumers, meanwhile, want relief from high beef prices now.
That’s the dilemma Trump carries into Nebraska.
His administration wants more beef available quickly enough to lower prices for families.
Nebraska ranchers don’t want Washington solving that problem by importing competition that drives down what they receive for their cattle.
And the Republican senator Trump is flying in to help agrees with the ranchers.
Ricketts says Trump is coming for one purpose.
“The president’s coming to Nebraska to help me campaign, so I can get reelected,” he told the AP.
The senator will undoubtedly appreciate the help.
He’d just rather Trump leave the foreign beef at home.
MY QUICK TAKE
This is one of those stories where everybody’s argument makes sense right up until it runs into everybody else’s.
Families look at hamburger prices and say: Do something.
Trump says: Fine, let’s increase supply.
Nebraska ranchers say: Not with somebody else’s cows.
And Pete Ricketts gets to welcome the president to cattle country while simultaneously telling him his cattle policy stinks.
Welcome to governing.
There’s also a larger economic lesson here that conservatives used to debate endlessly — and Rush certainly understood it. Government can pull one lever to help consumers and discover that the other end of the lever is sitting on somebody else’s livelihood.
Cheap imported beef may put downward pressure on supermarket prices. It can also put downward pressure on American cattle prices at precisely the moment Washington says it wants ranchers to invest in rebuilding the domestic herd.
That’s not hypocrisy. That’s a genuine policy tradeoff.
And today Trump gets to discuss it in Nebraska, where explaining cattle economics to cattlemen should be approximately as easy as explaining talk radio to Rush Limbaugh.
The president is going there to help Pete Ricketts. If the subject turns to beef, Ricketts may return the favor by helping Trump change the subject.
DBS WIRE SOURCES:
- Associated Press — Trump heads to Nebraska, where his plan to import more beef has angered ranchers
- Fox News — Trump’s beef import plan draws anger from cattle ranchers
- Fox News — Republicans warn Trump’s beef decision is hurting cattle producers
