Ranchers react to Trump comments on importing Argentinian beef: "America first? The independent rancher is always dead freakin' last."

Without country of origin labeling, ranchers say increasing imports is a betrayal.

The U.S. has lost almost half of its beef ranchers in the last 50 years.

Sunday evening, President Trump told reporters he plans to import beef from Argentina in order to bring down prices for U.S. consumers.

“The only price we have that’s high is beef, and we’ll get that down,” he said. “One of the things we’re thinking about doing is beef from Argentina.”

It’s a move many American ranchers feared.

“America first?” says Oregon rancher James Burke. “The independent rancher is always dead freakin last!”

“Ranchers don’t need market manipulation where the government picks winners and losers in agriculture,” says Amanda Radke, a South Dakota rancher and ag writer. “Ranchers need free and fair markets.”

Cattle producers say plan undercuts them

Ranchers were put on the alert by Trump’s remarks on beef costs last week.

“We are working on beef,” Trump told reporters at a press conference. “I think we have a deal on beef that’s gonna bring the price of beef, that would be the one product that we would say is a little bit higher than we want it, maybe higher than we want it. And that’s gonna be coming down pretty soon, we did something, worked our magic.”

Most ranchers suspected Trump’s plan involved imports.

“Unless the ‘deal’ is to break up the cartel of beef packers, the outcome is going to screw American ranchers who are actually making money for the first time in awhile,” said James Decker, mayor of Stamford, Texas and Substack author.

After tough years and tight margins, cow-calf producers are enjoying a strong market thanks to several factors including disease concerns in Mexico that have shut the Southern border to cattle imports, and surging consumer demand for beef.

“Beef consumption just hit a 40-year peak, back to 1980s levels,” Radke says.

Successful producers know to stick it out through lean years and bank on the good. It’s challenging terrain: Since 1973, the U.S. has lost almost 700,000 cow-calf operations—a decline of 47% in just over 50 years.

“The beef industry goes in waves, and we ride them,” says Chelsey Erdmann, a sixth-generation farmer and rancher in North Dakota. “The barriers to entry are too great to jump out when its low, and jump back in when its high. So right now, we are enjoying the high of the market. We are reinvesting in our businesses, we are paying off old debt, we are making money right now and we are excited about it.”

Government intervention threatens to upend the cycle again.

Should the government control consumer prices?

According to John Rodgers, co-founder of Western Video Market, this wouldn’t be the first time the government has pulled the rug out from under cattle producers.

“Lyndon Johnson devastated the cattle market in 1964 by making note of the fact that beef prices were too high and people should stop eating beef,” writes Rodgers in his weekly market report. “In 1973, Richard Nixon almost destroyed the cattle industry by putting a ceiling on the price of beef. In the late 70s, the first of two dairy buyouts were instituted by the geniuses that were running our country. The ultimate disaster came on April 1, 1986, when the Reagan administration decided it would be a good idea to buy out struggling dairy farmers and send one million dairy cows to slaughter. The cattle market was in the tank for decades after that. Many ranchers and cattle feeders left the industry as a result of this ill conceived program.”

The expectation that D.C. should control consumer prices is a slippery slope, he argues. If the president is responsible for costs at the grocery store, the natural dynamics of supply and demand must be upended for political strategy. Price controls and market manipulation become inevitable tools of the successful politician.

“We expect droughts, blizzards, and disease and have managed through that for generations,” says Brett Kenzy, a South Dakota cattle rancher. “D.C. politics, with no regard for domestic producers and consumers that can change business dynamics overnight, are impossible to plan for. Now the talking heads are saying we should have hedged. They must have a crystal ball I don’t have.”

Beef remains the most decentralized sector in American agriculture. Other protein markets, including pork and chicken, have consolidated in recent decades. Kenzy warns that beef is headed that way; more and more ranchers are leaving the industry altogether.

“Eventually D.C. will run out of suckers like me—the producing class who are all in,” he says. “Vertical integration will become a reality, quality will be whatever the globalists say it is, and consumers will find out what ‘scarcity’ and ‘expensive’ really is.”

“Just cheapen it up and shut up, cowman.”

“We are just pawns in the matrix—why the hell do this work and worry?” says Burke. “No incentives or programs to build the domestic cow herd, or bring in a young generation; just cheapen it up and shut up, cowman.”

Beef costs have stayed relatively stable over the last 50 years—costs in 1973 were slightly higher than today, adjusted for inflation. One pound of ground beef in 1980 was equivalent to the earnings of 12 minutes of labor, and that ratio is roughly the same in 2025.

At the same time, input costs have soared.

“Like land at $20,000 an acre ain’t high?” Burke says. “A $70,000 pickup ain’t high? A $150,000 utility tractor ain’t high?”

From fuel to feed to labor to land, producers are paying more than ever to stay in business, with many forced to downsize. The U.S. cattle herd is the smallest its been since 1951. On top of that, years of trade policies favoring foreign producers have forced many American ranchers out of business altogether. In the 1980s, imports constituted 10% of U.S. beef consumption. Today, imports make up over 22%.

“Livestock guys never can win,” writes Brent Krause, a South Dakota producer, on X. “Hardly ever get bailouts. When prices are good, government floods supply with cheap imports.”

Given these factors, ranchers contest the perception that American beef—nutritious, protein-rich, and raised to the highest environmental and animal welfare standards on earth—is priced too high.

“A hamburger full of high-quality protein and nutrients for $6 is an incredible deal, especially when you consider the cost of foods with far less to offer,” says Justin Tupper, president of the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association.

Others contrast beef prices to the cost of nutritionally-empty, mass-produced products.

“A Snickers bar weighs 1.86 ounces,” says Chris Earl of Reverse Rocking R Ranch in New Mexico. “At $2.69 a bar, that equals $23 dollars a pound for a Snickers.”

Renewed calls for market fairness, MCOOL legislation

Many producers believe Trump is responding to demands from powerful meatpacking companies to increase supply and slash the premium prices they are being forced to pay for American beef products.

The advocacy group R-CALF USA has long criticized the unchecked power of the four meatpacking companies that process 85% of the American beef supply.

“Packers and retailers have become so concentrated they now control the market,” R-CALF posted in an X statement. “A generation ago, ranchers earned over 60% of the consumer beef dollar. Today, they get under 40%. Trying to lower prices by inviting even more imports only speeds up the dismantling of America’s beef industry. We don’t need more foreign beef. We need fair markets and country of origin labels.”

At the very least, ranchers argue, they should have the right to compete against imported beef with clear and transparent labeling.

“I don’t really care if Argentina imports beef, as long as its clearly labeled,” says Arizona rancher Casey Murph. “American ranchers are more than ready to compete with the rest of the world’s beef with their lax standards.”

Mandatory country of origin labeling (MCOOL) would require meatpackers to label beef products with the country it came from, giving American producers a market edge. Ranchers have called for this legislation for years to no avail.

Burke warns that flooding the market with cheap foreign beef could turn ranchers turn against a President who has historically enjoyed enormous popularity in cowboy country.

“Quite a few plywood Trump signs in flyover country might get turned over and used to patch up the loading chute.”