Where's the beef from?

President Donald Trump was happy to brag to his Truth Social followers about how he would allow 300,000 metric tons of ground beef to be imported into the country without triggering tariffs — at a 25 percent discount from market price, no less. When reporters asked which countries he secured this commitment from, however, he became oddly circumspect.

"I don't want to say," he responded.

Anonymously selling a product below market price is rarely a recipe for quality or safety, especially where food is concerned — and food safety has been in the news alarmingly frequently as of late. Frozen blueberries in the South are contaminated with E. coli. Salmonella-contaminated jalapeño peppers have been found in fresh salsa. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still investigating a growing cyclosporiasis outbreak originally traced to lettuce from Taylor Farms — the same company that donated $1 million to a Trump-aligned political action committee after the administration delayed a food traceability rule intended to allow for faster identification and removal of potentially contaminated food. It's also the same company that called the White House and received a delay in a planned recall of its cyclospora-infected lettuce.

Consumers are responding predictably to the increasing frequency of foodborne illnesses and the obvious administration-driven corruption of federal health agencies. According to USA Today, lettuce purchases are down more than 10 percent in states affected by the cyclosporiasis outbreak, while salad purchases at quick-service restaurant chains have decreased by 16 percent.

If Trump's gray-market imported beef triggers a similar scare, the results would be catastrophic for Nevada's already beleaguered cattle ranchers and the state's agricultural sector.

According to an economic analysis published by the Nevada Department of Agriculture, beef cattle were the top commodity produced by the state's agriculture sector in 2022, accounting for nearly one-third of the $1.2 billion produced by the state's ranches and farms that year. Additionally, hay and alfalfa — which is often used as cattle feed — made up 77 percent of Nevada's $322.2 million crop industry. 

Consequently, when Nevada's cattle ranchers catch a cold, the state's agricultural sector catches pneumonia.

Despite Trump's demonstrated fondness for red meat — he used to sell ludicrously overpriced Trump Steaks through catalogs and television home shopping networks — Nevada's cattle ranchers haven't felt much love from this administration. For example, instead of endorsing James Settelmeyer, a local cattle rancher, for the state's 2nd Congressional District, Trump chose to support David Flippo, a former Las Vegas resident who moved to Reno weeks before the filing deadline passed. 

Additionally, the administration is also trying to lowball Nevada's cattle ranchers as it expands Naval Air Station Fallon's bombing range into public grazing lands. Though it's a bit disingenuous of Nevada's ranchers to expect taxpayers to reimburse them for 100 years of compensation without subtracting the operational costs that ranchers will no longer have to incur in maintaining herds on now-inaccessible public rangelands, it's also disingenuous of the government to pretend Nevada's ranchers are making less on net than a part-time convenience store clerk.

As if that weren't enough, the New World screwworm was recently detected in American cattle for the first time since the 1960s — though, fortunately for Nevada's ranchers at least, they've thus far only been spotted in Texas. 

Screwworms have been working their way through Central America and Mexico after a sterile-fly production facility was shut down in Mexico in 2012. Since then, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been working on building new facilities to address the threat. In 2025, however, the Department of Government Efficiency cut funding for screwworm monitoring efforts while the Trump administration laid off 20 percent of the USDA's staff. 

Though the Texas Tribune could not determine the effect that those funding and staff cuts had on screwworm eradication efforts, it would be extremely surprising if any of that helped.

Trump's tariffs, meanwhile, have been used less as a shield for domestic cattle producers from international competition and more as a means for the administration to support ideological allies overseas. On several occasions, much to the annoyance of the cattle industry, Trump has sought to increase imports of Argentine beef to help President Javier Milei's ideologically conservative regime.

According to the Economic Security Project, ground beef prices in the United States have increased 78.3 percent since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and have increased 24.2 percent since Trump's inauguration. It's almost heartening, in a twisted sort of way, to see the Trump administration confess that they know free trade leads to lower prices for Americans. 

Free trade also supports American producers. The Cato Institute recently published a report that not only found that tariff-protected industries have been growing more slowly than less-protected industries, it also found that domestic industrial production increased after the Supreme Court overturned Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs.

In short, tariffs are bad for consumers, bad for producers and are just flat out bad policy.

Trump's under-the-table importation of mystery meat, however, is not free trade. It's corrupt personal dealmaking that benefits him and his friends through means we'll only discover with a court order at the expense of Nevada's cattle ranchers — and the health of the American public.

David Colborne ran for public office twice. He is now an IT manager and a recurring opinion columnist for The Nevada Independent. You can follow him on Mastodon @[email protected], on Bluesky @davidcolborne.bsky.social, on Threads @davidcolbornenv or email him at [email protected]. You can also message him on Signal at dcolborne.64.