US beef prices are soaring. Will Trump’s plans lower them?

Beef prices in the United States have risen to the point that they have become a political problem.

Even Donald Trump, who has long declared inflation “dead,” is talking about it, as the issue threatens to undermine his promises to lower grocery prices for Americans.

This week, he took to social media, urging ranchers to lower the prices of their livestock.

But his order — and other proposals his administration has floated to address the issue — have sparked a backlash among ranchers, who worry that some of his solutions will make it harder for them to earn a living, while having little impact in the grocery store.

The number of ranchers and ranchers in the United States has dwindled steadily since 1980, reducing domestic supplies and raising prices, while demand remains high.

The nation’s livestock inventory has fallen to its lowest level in nearly 75 years, while the U.S. has lost more than 150,000 ranches since 2017 alone — a 17% decline, according to the Agriculture Department.

Ranchers say they are under pressure from four decades of consolidation among meat processing companies that buy their livestock, while rising costs of key inputs such as fertilizer and equipment have exacerbated the pressure.

The industry’s downturn has worsened, as several years of drought have forced ranchers to reduce their herds.

Christian Lovell, an Illinois cattle rancher, said parts of his farm that were lush and grassy when he was a child have now dried out, limiting where his cows can graze.

“If you put it all together, you have a recipe for a really broken market,” said Lovell, who works with the advocacy group Farm Action.

Retail prices for ground beef rose 12.9% in the 12 months through September, and beef steaks rose 16.6%, according to U.S. inflation data published Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A pound of ground chuck now costs an average of $6.33 (£4.75), compared to $5.58 last year.

The increases significantly outpaced the overall food price inflation rate, which reached 3.1%.

“Cattle herds have gotten smaller in the last few years, and yet people still want American beef, hence the higher prices,” said Brenda Butel, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls.

Derrell Bell, a professor of agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University, said he expects prices to remain high until at least the end of the decade, noting that replenishing herds takes years.

Bell added that the Trump administration’s “hands are tied” when it comes to interventions that would help lower prices.

This week, the Ministry of Agriculture unveiled what it called a “big package” aimed at increasing domestic beef production, by opening up more land for livestock grazing and supporting small meat processing companies.

The proposal came after Trump angered ranchers when he suggested importing more beef from Argentina, which could quadruple purchases.

Eight Republican members of the House of Representatives responded with a letter to the White House expressing concern about Trump’s import plans.

Even the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which has expressed support for Trump’s policies in the past, said the import plan “does nothing but create chaos at a critical time of the year for American livestock producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices.”

Trump responded by reassuring farmers that he was helping them in other ways, pointing to tariffs that limit imports from Brazil.

“It would be great if they understood that, but they also need to lower their prices, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking as well,” Trump wrote.

But that failed to calm the uproar.

Justin Teuber, president of the American Cattlemen’s Association, said he believes only the Big Four meatpackers will benefit from Trump’s import plan.

“I don’t see prices going down here at all,” Mr. Taber said.

Some say the government could have an impact if it focused on the way the meat processing market is dominated by a handful of companies.

Today, just four companies control more than 80% of the beef slaughtering and packing market.

“These single markets manipulate ranchers and manipulate consumers in the store,” said Austin Frerick, an agricultural policy and antitrust expert and Yale University fellow.

The meat processors — Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef — have faced several lawsuits, including one filed by McDonald’s alleging they colluded to inflate beef prices.

Although Trump rescinded a Biden-era order earlier this year that directed agencies to address consolidation of companies across the food system, his administration has taken other steps to investigate competition issues in the agricultural industry.

Mike Callikrat runs a cattle ranch in St. Francis, Kansas. He said the only way he could survive in the industry was to cut out the middlemen and set up his own stores to reach consumers directly.

But Mr. Kalikrat acknowledged that most ranchers don’t have the money to make the switch. Many have left the industry – and see no incentive to get back into it.

“We’re not going to rebuild this cow herd, not until we address market concentration,” Kalikrat said.

He said he supports the Ministry of Agriculture’s plans to open more livestock grazing land to boost production and reduce retail prices.

“But unless we have a market, you are a fool to get into the cattle business,” he added.

Bill Bullard found himself among the first wave of ranchers to be pushed out when the meat processing industry began to consolidate in the early 1980s.

He closed his 300-cow operation in South Dakota in 1985.

It’s only in the past year or so that ranchers have gotten good prices for their cattle, with supply falling so low that the prices paid by meat processors “simply had to go up,” said Pollard, who is now CEO of the livestock producers trade association R-CALF USA.

However, dependence on imports and the purchasing power of meatpackers persists, Pollard said, meaning ranchers “lack confidence in the integrity of the market” and remain reluctant to raise their herds.

He said he did not trust that the president’s ideas would solve the problems.

“He focused on the symptoms, not the problems,” he said.