U.S. beef prices have been stubbornly high for a variety of reasons, including drought and reduced imports from Mexico due to a flesh-eating pest in cattle herds there.
U.S. beef prices have been stubbornly high for a variety of reasons, including drought and reduced imports from Mexico due to a flesh-eating pest in cattle herds there.
Tarrifs really. His favourite toy. When he ‘decides to import Argentinian beef’, i presume this means he means he will remove or reduce tarrifs on beef from Argentina, and potentially lower or streamline any bureacracratic hurdles - you know silly things like quality and disease control - stuff like that which Republicans hate. That’ll thereby make Argentinian beef much cheaper for US wholsalers.
As usual, this is a disaster of his own making, as he imposed an additional 50% tarrif on Brazilian beef - which was a large source of US supermarket beef, on top of their pre-existing 23.6% tarrif… Taking it to nearly 75% tarrif, and this was during an (ongoing) parasite outbreak in Mexico that was already lowering beef availability to the US and causing price rises. So, shock… supermarket beef prices shot up rapidly in response and have stayed there.
Don’t forget that the parasite outbreak in Mexico was caused by Trump’s administration cutting funding for a program that prevented the parasite from crossing the Panama Canal.