Offhand comments from the president have sent cattle prices plummeting. While on Air Force One, President Trump said he was considering importing beef (and maybe cattle) from Argentina.
Collin Woodall, CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, says that’s disappointing. Woodall says they’ve had a good working relationship with the administration and USDA, but this direction is a surprise.
NCBA’s family farmers and ranchers are concerned that rewarding Argentina with this expanded access to the U.S. market harms American cattlemen and women, while also interfering with the free market.
“This plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices,” says Woodall. “Additionally, Argentina has a deeply unbalanced trade relationship with the U.S. In the past five years, Argentina has sold more than $801 million of beef into the U.S. market. By comparison, the U.S. has sold just over $7 million worth of American beef to Argentina. Argentina also has a history of foot-and-mouth disease, which, if brought to the United States, could decimate our domestic livestock production.”
Markets are still reacting to that slip of the tongue on Friday. John Heinberg, market advisor with Total Farm Marketing, tells Farm Director Pam Jahnke that without actual facts, traders react heavily to those kinds of social media posts.
“We’ll have to see what the impact is if it even occurs. Some of the beef cattle groups and ag farm groups have really kind of stepped up their noise against this type of a policy, just basically saying ‘let the free market work,’” Heinberg says.
He says beef is a different animal, no pun intended, than solving the egg crisis, for example.
“You’re talking about a perishable product that’s big in bulk. It’s going to be difficult to get in the market. Then, there are different levels of beef in the United States. This beef would not be the quality, high-end restaurant, retail trade. It’s probably going to go into trim,” he explains. “Maybe his focus is bringing that ground beef price down to help out the lower-end consumer who is getting affected the most by things that are happening economically here in the United States.”
