Cattle prices are taking a seismic drop. Trump’s policies aren’t helping any
Cattle markets have been getting hammered in recent months, largely because Trump’s tariff and trade policies create uncertainties that are overwhelming the market. Nobody really seems to know what the heck is going on.
The magnitude of this drop (15% to 20% since last Spring) during a period of tight supplies is contra-intuitional, if not altogether crazy. USDA says that 2025’s beef cow and calf crop inventories are the lowest since 1961. So why are the markets selling off?
Farm Progress ticks off the itemized run of news that has led to this history-making episode in our live cattle markets:
Trump’s recent headline-grabbing announcement that he’s exempting tariffs on 300 tons of imported ground beef
Tyson’s closure of its Joslin, Illinois and Eagle Mountain, Utah, beef processing plants
Re-opening of the Mexican border for live cattle crossings
Worsening drought in the Southern Plains and the Southeast
July’s Cattle Inventory report from USDA showed that the country’s herd size has stabilized somewhat after steadily downtrending in recent years, but total numbers are still historically low, with USDA noting that “reduced feeder cattle numbers ultimately imply limited future fed cattle supplies, which should provide some support to cattle prices.”
So where’s the support?
None of the supply/demand numbers in the report justify the sharpness of the drop in live cattle prices. To me that suggests the markets are looking ahead to a supply increase that will have to come from somewhere other than domestic producers.
Farm Progress pins the negative price sentiments directly to Trump’s beef import plans, pointing specifically to the opening of the border to feeder cattle imports. Given the political environment as midterms approach and the overall sensitivity to high food prices that must be making Republicans nervous as voting nears, it makes sense to expect price-reducing policies to come out of Washington for a while.
Are South Dakota’s congressional delegates going to bat for our state’s cattle producers on this? They’re giving it some lip service, but so far the responses from Sens. Thune and Rounds are tepid at best. Outgoing Rep. Dusty Johnson says he has “raised concerns” with the White House, but I imagine that his lame-duck status has rendered him politically irrelevant at this point.
As to consumers, we’ll have to wait a bit to see if the cattle market selloff translates into cheaper prices for beef. Numbers from July indicate that ground beef prices, averaging $6.89 per pound, are 10% higher than they were last year. I’m guessing a price drop, if any, will be marginal, because the live animal is just a fraction of the price we pay at the grocery store.
Trump’s flailing efforts to get consumer prices down will probably come up short again.
John Tsitrian is a businessman and writer from the Black Hills. He was a weekly columnist for the Rapid City Journal for 20 years. His articles and commentary have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Omaha World-Herald. Tsitrian served in the Marines for three years (1966-69), including a 13-month tour of duty as a radioman in Vietnam. Republish with permission.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
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