Beef and America’s cattle ranchers are no longer on MAGA’s menu

As President Donald Trump‘s trade policies continue to hurt farmers across the country, and with government relief a polarizing possibility for soybean farmers and the administration alike, a red line might have finally been crossed for many of his MAGA supporters. 

It wasn’t the threat of rising healthcare costs, which would triple for more than 20 million Americans as part of Trump’s plan to cancel subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, which have been at the center of the government shutdown. Nor was it the danger of hunger for 42 million Americans facing the expiration of SNAP benefits since Nov. 1, a disaster that only an order from a federal judge could stave off unless the government reopens. It most certainly wasn’t the mass exodus of federal employees since the shutdown began. (Since Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) started swinging the axe in the spring, there’s no reason for conservatives to blanche now.)

It was the sight of blood that got them queasy — specifically the medium-rare steak that could be coming to their plates from Argentina, not Texas, Nebraska or any other American state.

Chalk it up to Argentinian President Javier Milei being Trump’s “favorite president,” or perhaps to the misguided idea that lowering costs for consumers by quadrupling beef imports from the Southern hemisphere will benefit the American beef industry in the long-term. We get cheap beef, Argentina makes a profit. Trump certainly does love a deal. 

After giving $20 billion to Argentina, and with another $20 billion on the way, the prospect of buying beef from the nation that is making a killing by selling its soybeans to China is an insult to the injury of Trump’s policies that apparently cannot be stomached by American cattle ranchers — or even by conservatives on Capitol Hill. 

In an interview with Semafor on Oct. 22, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., defended Trump for trying to “drive down beef prices.” But after providing the initial mandatory praise, Thune quickly broke from the president’s plan to flood the market with cheap Argentine beef. “This isn’t the way to do it,” he said. “It’s created a lot of uncertainty in that market. So I’m hoping that the White House has gotten the message.” 

That message is coming from Republicans nationwide. The call is coming from inside the house.

On Oct. 29, 14 House Republicans — led by House Ways and Means Chair Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., and Trade Subcommittee Chair Adrian Smith, R-Neb. — protested the move in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, calling for more clarity on the deal and demanding “equivalent market access for U.S. beef exports.”  

“On average, Argentina exports over $200 million of beef annually to the U.S. while purchasing less than $2 million of U.S. beef in return,” the letter read, calling for “long-term fairness” in any beef deal with Argentina. “We encourage the Administration to ensure that any adjustments to Argentina’s tariff-rate quota or inspection regime be contingent on verified equivalency and reciprocal market access for American beef.”

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Smith also joined the entire federal delegation from Nebraska in roundly condemning the deal. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., sought “clarity” for her “deep concerns” about the beef plan. “If the goal is addressing beef prices at the grocery store, this isn’t the way. Right now, government intervention in the beef market will hurt our cattle ranchers,” she wrote on X. “Nebraska’s ranchers cannot afford to have the rug pulled out from under them when they’re just getting ahead or simply breaking even.”   

Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., said the deal would “undermine domestic producers,” and Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., called the concerns of ranchers “justifiable.” Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., called on Trump to use “market-based solutions” to rising beef costs.

“Moving to import more Argentine beef at this time will set farmers and ranchers back,” Ricketts wrote. “I urge the administration to reconsider its plans.”

The Nebraska cohort, along with the letter-signers, is just a small part of the anger coming from the GOP, to say nothing of the response from market analysts and the nation’s cattle ranchers.

“If Trump goes through with what he outlined, I do believe it’s a betrayal of the American rancher. It’s a feeling that you’re selling us out to a foreign competitor,” an Illinois cattle rancher told CNN. 

While the Argentinian deal certainly undercut prices, the actual problem could be a deep, political prime cut of disaffected rural voters, served up hot and angry in the 2026 midterms.

On the Nov. 3 edition of “All Things Considered,” NPR aired an interview with Oren Lesmeister, a fifth-generation cattle rancher from South Dakota who said he feels betrayed by the president. A Democrat, Lesmeister nonetheless voted for Trump thinking his plan for the American beef industry “was great. He was going to make farmers and ranchers first, America first and agriculture.”

That didn’t happen. “[H]e’s kind of jerked a rug right out from underneath us,” Lesmeister said, “with the tariff talks coming off and Argentina beef quadrupling coming in and possibly other countries bringing in meat, also, right in the heart of the cattle run, when all these producers are selling their calves for the fall. And they only get one paycheck a year, and this is it, so it really hurt a lot of producers.”

Trump’s policy has also drawn the ire of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), which did not mince language in a statement that called the president out for “undercut[ting] the future of family farmers and ranchers.”

To add fuel to the barbecue, the deal with Argentina may be all for naught. Both the NCBA and Lesmeister said the imports will do little to drive down beef prices at the grocery.

Still, the Trump administration is standing its ground. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent praised Trump’s Argentina policy in a post on X. “President Trump’s policy of Peace through Economic Strength is going to transform Latin America, and I look forward to visiting Argentina again very soon,” he said.

Bessent’s assurances are cold comfort for America’s cattle ranchers. But then again, he is a soybean farmer.

In refusing to back down, Trump and administration officials are refusing to acknowledge the blatant contradiction in the import plan. For a movement centered on an “America First” economic philosophy that wants nothing to do with foreign imports — or alliances, for that matter — the very idea of getting discounted beef from Argentina is simply anathema. Further, the NCBA has raised concerns about what they called Argentina’s “long history of foot-and-mouth disease,” pointing out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has yet to put a plan in place that will ensure the safety of the country’s imported beef.

The food, then, doesn’t have to be up to the same health and safety standards, and it certainly doesn’t have to taste better. It just needs to make up for the rising cost of American beef, domestic cattle ranchers be damned.

It boils down to this: Trump is asking America’s cattle ranchers and their representatives to trust him. And it’s clear they don’t.