With the embers of another barbecue season burning low, Americans seeking to fire up the Weber one more time received some less than reassuring news. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) just announced the recall of 167,000 pounds of beef, pork and goat after it was discovered to be carrying false inspection labels.

But that's a foodie footnote compared to the late August announcement by President Donald Trump that 300,000 metric tons — 661 million pounds — of "beef trimmings" were pouring into the American market from Brazil and Argentina. To no great surprise, there's a sleazy component to the beef story, first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The company involved is co-owned by the son of corrupt former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro. The JBS meatpacking company had promised to discount its suspicious shipment 25 percent in exchange as part of a 90-day tariff reprieve by the Trump administration.

Reaction to the announcement was swift, with National Cattlemen's Beef Association Chief Executive Officer Colin Woodall issuing a statement expressing the group's "disappointment" and adding, "While America's cattle producers share the goal of keeping groceries affordable for consumers, flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd."

In making much of the Brazilian beef trimmings deal, the president downplayed the fact that the mountain of meat in question had already been rejected by the European Union. 

Ground beef from a foreign source rushed to market? What could possibly go wrong? Look for it soon in a supermarket near you.

That last barbecue of the season is starting to sound a lot less inviting.

In direct response to the criticism he received from a conservative constituency in the wake of the dirty meat deal, in early September Trump signed an executive order seeking to roll back regulations at the USDA and "streamline processes," which raises further questions about future inspections. The order gives Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins 60 days to submit a plan "identifying remaining statutory or regulatory barriers to greater interstate market access." Somehow, I don't think increasing regulatory rigor at the USDA — already reeling from cutbacks — will be high on her list of things to do.

Further adding to the confusion is what's been called the "process your own food" mandate that would encourage ranchers to find ways to slaughter and process their beef and sell directly to consumers. The order leaves open the possibility, even likelihood, of fewer USDA safety inspections.

It is another of a growing list of oddities associated with the Trump administration's treatment of the American meat industry that adds uncertainty and confusion in the name of lowering prices for consumers.

It's taken generations for the American meatpacking industry to build credibility with the public. Far beyond juicy marketing campaigns — remember "Beef: It's what's for dinner?" — the industry has relied on the USDA to literally provide its seal of approval on its products.

There is a morsel of good news that comes not from your local supermarket, but from a courtroom, where federal employee unions won a round in their legal fight to prevent the USDA from implementing further worker cuts, closing offices and forcing other employees to relocate under the administration's "USDA reorganization plan." But it's only temporary.

The big meat scrap score is made to order for the president's image as America's Don-in-Chief. Those of us who have studied organized crime will recall that for many years the underworld maintained shadowy connections in part of the meatpacking industry, some of its related unions and the trucking companies that moved the product to market.

One of my favorite meat mobster stories is the tale of the trailer load of tainted meat that Charles "Charlie Callahan" Anselmo needed to find a home for. A New York member of the Bonanno crime family, in the 1960s Anselmo had his hands in many rackets, few as malodorous as this one.

Despite its stench and discoloration, which formaldehyde and other products not meant for human consumption could only partially mask, Anselmo found an associate willing to make a deal. An inspector could smell the problem from here to Pittsburgh.

At one point, as recounted in Jonathan Kwitney's Vicious Circles: The Mafia in the Marketplace, Anselmo's associate asked him a simple question about the meat's provenance: "Does it moo?"

Anselmo replied, "Well, some of it moos, and some of it don't moo."

Some of it don't moo, because some of it was putrid horse meat.

Everyone who knows the history of the American meat business understands there's always someone willing to put their thumb on the scale.

I just never imagined that person would occupy the White House.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family's Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.