President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Wednesday announcing a 660 million pound increase of beef imports tariff-free for 90 days. The move is aimed at lowering costs for shoppers by providing beef trimmings at 25 percent below the market price, but agricultural groups say it undercuts the competitiveness of domestic beef operations.
Kris Descheemaeker with the Montana Farm Bureau Federation ranches near Lewistown and says the decision comes at a busy time for cattle sales.
“With the drought conditions that we’re facing, we don’t want to overwinter any cattle that aren’t going to have a calf for next year, so we’re sending those cattle to market, and that’s the market that they’re going into, is what he’s importing those pounds into,” she said. “So, that’s affecting our market negatively.”
The American Farm Bureau Federation addressed a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to reconsider temporarily flooding the market with foreign imports as a fix for higher prices. They say those costs are the result of demand, global trade relationships and production costs 30 percent higher than they were six years ago, and they say it will do little to address those long-term trends.
Walter Schweitzer with the Montana Farmers Union runs a cattle operation in central Montana and says beef prices dropped in response to the news. He says he started seeing impacts personally in the days before the proclamation.
“I got a call from my customer over the weekend. And they said they’re pretty concerned, they’re uncertain where this market’s going to go, and they just don’t know if they can buy these heifers at this time at this price, and so they cancelled the sale, and y’know, I can’t blame them.”
He advocates passing labeling requirements so that buyers can choose for themselves whether to buy foreign or domestic beef, rather than leaving it up to a few meatpackers that dominate the market. The first imports are scheduled for September 1.
