House and Senate Republicans on Friday criticized President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to suspend tariffs on ground beef imports, with lawmakers from agricultural states decrying the impact Trump\u2019s decision will have on farmers.<\/p>\n
Nebraska\u2019s GOP senators, Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts, said in separate posts on X that Trump\u2019s decision was unwise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m extremely disappointed by this decision from the White House,\u201d Fischer wrote. \u201cWe all want lower grocery prices, but as I\u2019ve said for months, we cannot do it at the expense of American producers. Flooding the market with foreign beef hurts our livestock industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ricketts wrote: \u201cI appreciate the Administration\u2019s work to lower grocery prices. Short term policy shifts do not equal long term solutions. Flooding the market with lower quality beef compromises Nebraska farmers and ranchers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president announced Friday on Truth Social that \u201cthe United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out of quota tariff. We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump did not say which companies that import beef had agreed to this commitment or what countries would supply the meat.<\/p>\n Explaining his decision, the president pledged that this deal \u201cwill reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., also cited the hardships American cattle farmers would face as a result of the president\u2019s decision and referred to conversations he\u2019s had with Trump about this issue.<\/p>\n \u201cThe President\u2019s heart is in the right place on wanting lower prices for the American people, and beef prices have been impacted by the Mexican screwworm,\u201d Sheehy wrote on X. \u201cBut the reality is this action will make it more difficult for American ranchers to rebuild our herd and bring prices down for the American people. And most importantly, this will harm our ranching families who feed the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, who is running for Senate and received Trump\u2019s endorsement in the race, also panned his announcement, writing in a post on X, \u201cI want to lower prices but this is a bad idea.\u201d<\/p>\n Hinson said that instead of allowing beef imports without tariffs, \u201cWe should be focused on cutting red tape for cattle producers, lowering the cost of production, and supporting market-based solutions to support Iowa producers and lower costs for consumers.\u201d <\/p>\n Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, writing in his custom shorthand on X, also expressed concern about Trump\u2019s announcement, writing that \u201cUSA cattlemen shld always be put 1st thru America 1st policies.\u201d<\/p>\n Grassley also expressed a \u201cneed 2keep up progress fighting screwworm+ expanding domestic herd.\u201d<\/p>\n On Friday, the president defended his decision when asked at Joint Base Andrews about the criticism he was facing from fellow Republicans.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, we want to get the beef prices down, so we\u2019ll get them down a little bit, and that\u2019s what people want. That\u2019s what the voters want, and that\u2019s what I want,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cThe ranchers are great. They\u2019re my people. I love the ranchers. They\u2019ve done a fantastic job, but they admit that we need a little help, and in order to get the prices down, so that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News\u2019 request for comment on the lawmakers\u2019 criticisms of Trump\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n U.S. cattle ranchers have faced headwinds for years that have sent beef prices higher, including shrinking supply. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the United States\u2019 current cattle herd is the nation\u2019s smallest since 1951.<\/p>\n A flesh-eating screwworm that targets cattle was also detected in the U.S. earlier this year for the first time in decades, further threatening cattle herds.<\/p>\n Trump first floated the idea of lowering imports on beef last year, but the notion was quickly shot down by a similar group of GOP senators from agricultural states.<\/p>\n \u201cI represent a beef-producing state. We have four times as many cattle as people,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said at the time, explaining his opposition.<\/p>\n On Friday, leaders for a top industry group representing cattle farmers, the National Cattlemen\u2019s Beef Association, also said they were \u201cdisappointed\u201d with Trump\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n \u201cNCBA is disappointed by the President\u2019s statement,\u201d said Colin Woodall, the group\u2019s chief executive officer. \u201cWhile America\u2019s cattle producers share the goal of keeping groceries affordable for consumers, flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s announcement and other market interventions throw cold water on the prospect of herd expansion and sacrifices long-term stability for short term messaging,\u201d Woodall added.<\/p>\n This post appeared first on https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" House and Senate Republicans on Friday criticized President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to suspend tariffs on ground beef imports, with lawmakers from agricultural states decrying the impact Trump\u2019s decision will have on farmers. Nebraska\u2019s GOP senators, Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts, said in separate posts on X that Trump\u2019s decision was unwise. \u201cI\u2019m extremely disappointed by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2997,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retrotradingreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retrotradingreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retrotradingreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retrotradingreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retrotradingreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/retrotradingreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retrotradingreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retrotradingreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retrotradingreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retrotradingreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}