The average price for a pound of ground beef is $6.32, up about 14 percent since Trump took office.
The Trump administration is acutely aware of a looming political vulnerability: beef.
In just the last month, President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with the high prices U.S. consumers are seeing in grocery stores, promising “a deal” to “bring the price down.”
The near-term solution to boost supply — plans to purchase 80,000 metric tons of beef from Argentina, quadruple the typical quota — has spurred intense backlash from farm-state Republicans and agriculture industry groups who have felt burned by several Trump administration policies in recent months.
But Trump’s election was fueled, in part, by Americans’ concerns over high costs, an issue the president often hammered on the campaign trail as he promised food prices would fall if he returned to the White House. Ten months in, Trump and his top aides are scrambling to keep the campaign pledge, calculating that in the short-term it’s worth antagonizing ranchers, a loyal GOP constituency that benefits from elevated beef prices, if they can bring down costs for consumers.
“It’s kind of like eggs, part two,” said one person close to the Trump administration, who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “This all kind of started with just concern over consumer prices.”
The average price for a pound of ground beef is $6.32, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. That’s up about 14 percent since Trump took office, and meat remains one of the key drivers of overall inflation in grocery stores, according to the latest federal data on food prices released Friday.
Trump’s frustrations were evident last week, when he took to Truth Social to prod cattle ranchers to “get their prices down,” while crediting his tariffs on Brazil — another top beef exporter — with helping the U.S. cattle market.
“The ranchers for the first time in years have made some money,” Trump said Saturday, aboard Air Force One. “The beef prices are up a little big so we’ll have to make a determination, but the ranchers are very happy because for many years they suffered.”
The increase in beef prices is due to a number of factors, many outside the administration’s control, including drought, a smaller herd of domestic cattle and high operational expenses for ranchers.
The higher costs for consumers help ranchers’ bottom line, a rare bright spot in the struggling agricultural sector.
“The agricultural community is baffled by the president’s decision to focus on beef with everything else we’re dealing with in agriculture right now,” said one agriculture industry lobbyist, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Trump’s aides contend that the president is focused on helping both consumers and the nation’s ranchers, even as the White House’s longer-term plans to lower production costs across the industry have done little to dull the outcry.
“The president loves our ranchers, and he also loves American consumers. And he wants to do right by both, so the immediate solution to the problem of the rising cost of beef — the president wants to bring that down, as we have to increase our supply,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. “He promised to lower costs, and that’s what he is committed to doing.”
A White House official emphasized the administration’s plans to expand the herd of domestic cattle will strengthen the beef industry in the long-run.
The official, granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking, described Argentina as a natural replacement for more highly-tariffed Brazilian beef, noting that there are broader issues for the administration to resolve in Brazil.
“President Trump pledged to protect America’s ranchers and deliver economic relief for everyday Americans,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement. “The Administration is accomplishing both by expanding beef imports from Argentina to lower consumer prices in the short term while rolling out a new USDA initiative that will support ranchers and expand cattle herd sizes to keep prices lower in the long term.”
Whether Trump succeeds in ultimately lowering prices is uncertain, and Republicans argue that it will hurt ranchers while not appreciably lowering consumer costs.
“If the goal is addressing beef prices at the grocery store, this isn’t the way,” Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) said in a statement last week.
Anger over the increased imports comes amid broader discontent with a $20 billion bailout (which may double) for Argentina, even as its farmers undercut the U.S. soybean market. China has stopped its purchase of American soybeans, hurting struggling U.S. producers, a result of the trade war between the two countries. And for U.S. farmers reeling from challenges plaguing the industry, the president’s promised bailout is running out of time.
Argentina President Javier Milei visited the White House on Oct. 14, where he dined on chargrilled beef filet with Trump. In the days after that bilateral, Trump began floating the possibility of importing more beef from the South American country.
“We are working on beef, and I think we have a deal on beef that’s going to bring the price down,” Trump told reporters this month. “That would be the one product that we would say is a little bit higher than we want it, maybe higher than we want it, and that’s going to be coming down pretty soon, too. We did something, we worked our magic.”
The president’s allies said beyond consumer cost concerns, the timing of the announcement isn’t coincidental. Trump and his aides are also eager to help Milei, who has cultivated strong ties to the president and his MAGA movement.
Still, Trump’s Argentina announcement blindsided farm-state Republicans, and several GOP senators took their concerns to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and the president himself last week. Those lawmakers were already fielding calls from angry ranchers and trade groups worried the agreement will affect their own businesses.
“It’s not just farm lobby groups. Regular farmers out there are pissed, and conservative allies are pissed,” said another agriculture industry advocate. “A lot of rural and fairly conservative farmers are like, ‘What the hell? … the issue now is that we’re also helping Argentina by importing Argentinian beef instead of American beef, and that means that now you’re hitting American agriculture two times ahead of American interests.”
And it’s not clear how long it will take for the increased supply to lower prices at the grocery. Because the beef industry is increasingly consolidated and vertically integrated — and the life cycle of cattle is longer than other livestock — experts have noted that prices aren’t likely to change in the near term even with an influx of new imports.
The administration also launched a slew of industry-friendly policy updates last week that officials say will bring prices down in the longer term, though industry experts note that growing the size of U.S. cattle herd supply could take decades. And the president’s effort to help ranchers was overshadowed by the criticism facing his plans to import more beef.
“This plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices,” National Cattlemen’s Beef Association CEO Colin Woodall said in a statement responding to the import plans. “We call on President Trump and members of Congress to let the market work, rather than intervening in ways that do nothing but harm rural America.”