Cattle producers are shocked — betrayed, even. How could Donald Trump sell them out just as they’re finally making good profits on their beef? Doesn’t he love farmers and ranchers and everyone in rural America? In recent days, the president has made clear the answer — his feelings toward ranchers aren’t “love.”
Last week, the president floated the idea of buying more beef from Argentina, and within days the administration released a plan to quadruple Argentinian beef imports. The goal, Trump said, was to “bring our beef prices down,” but the plan neatly dovetails with Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s efforts to boost the political fortunes of Trump ally Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, an effort that includes $40 billion in financial assistance to bail out Argentina’s financial markets.
Everyone who buys beef has noticed how dramatically prices have risen in the last few years.
Not surprisingly, America’s cattle ranchers didn’t react too well; some recorded videos from their ranches, saying that even though they love Trump, this plan will hurt them at a critical moment for their industry. Even some Republicans from farm states, so wary of crossing the president on anything, have raised objections.
We all know how well Trump reacts to being told he’s wrong. In response to the criticism, he scolded them on Truth Social, posting, “The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% Tariff on Brazil. If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — Terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”
The ranchers are like Lando Calrissian in “The Empire Strikes Back,” protesting that he had a deal with Darth Vader. “I am altering the deal,” Vader responds. “Pray I do not alter it any further.” At that point, Lando knows he’s been played. It’s unclear if the ranchers have been clued in.
Everyone who buys beef has noticed how dramatically prices have risen in the last few years. Just since Trump took office in January, the price of ground chuck is up by 20%. The reasons why are not complicated: It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. After years of drought, the size of the national cattle herd fell. Then, as Trump admits in the Truth Social post, “because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States,” foreign imports fell. Imports from Mexico were also suspended entirely earlier this year after an infestation of screwworm.
Yet Americans keep buying more beef. Higher demand plus lower supply equals higher prices. That’s great for cattle ranchers, who say they’re finally making good profits after several lean years. But it’s not so great for consumers.
The ranchers ought to ask themselves why they ever thought Trump cared about them in the first place.
If the price of beef were all that’s going up, it wouldn’t be such a political problem. But inflation data released on Friday showed the annual rate of inflation increasing to 3%. Electricity bills are rising. Millions of Americans are about to see dramatic spikes in their health insurance premiums, both those who buy their insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchanges and those with employer-provided insurance. More car owners are struggling to make their payments. Consumer sentiment is positively dreadful.
You can bet Trump knows this, especially because during the 2024 campaign he repeatedly promised that as soon as he was elected, prices would plummet (“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day 1”). Within the last month, as MSNBC’s Steve Benen noted Friday, Trump has claimed to have “successfully ‘defeated,’ ‘cured’ and ‘solved’ inflation.” He probably also knows that Americans give him lower ratings on handling the cost of living than on any other issue. If you want to know how quickly inflation can torpedo a presidency, just ask Joe Biden.
To be fair to Trump, there’s no way he can simultaneously satisfy the ranchers, who want beef prices to stay high, and the rest of us, who want to spend as little as possible at the grocery store. But the ranchers ought to ask themselves why they ever thought Trump cared about them in the first place. It’s the same issue that farmers are now confronting, after Trump’s ruinous trade war has — just as anyone who knows anything about agricultural trade predicted — devastated the soybean industry. Now farmers are left waiting for a bailout. Given all that, one would think there’s an opening for Democrats to make a case to ranchers, farmers and everyone else in rural America. If Democrats had the guts (which they probably don’t), they could start by telling those rural folk an uncomfortable truth: You thought Trump loved you, and you gave him your votes. But you got nothing in return, as surely as any enrollee in Trump University. He was always going to sell you out the moment it was in his interest, and that’s just what’s happening now. The question isn’t how many farmers and ranchers will vote for Democrats, because they’re a tiny portion of the population. According to government data, fewer than a million and a half Americans farm as their primary occupation, or less than one-half of 1% of the population. But rural America writ large is central to Trump’s coalition, and Democrats tiptoe around those voters, desperate to show they’re listening and they care. They’d get a lot farther if they began their argument by saying “the Republicans you’ve been voting for up and down the ballot, starting with Trump? They take your votes for granted and make your lives worse in return.” Last week, Trump posted an AI-generated video on social media portraying himself dumping excrement on Americans who live in cities. He didn’t post another one showing him doing the same to ranchers and farmers, but he might as well have, for all he actually cares about them. And his opponents shouldn’t be shy about reminding rural Americans exactly what Trump thinks of them.
Paul Waldman is a journalist and author focused on politics and culture. 
