Trump reveals Brazil, Argentina involved in controversial beef deal

President Trump said Friday that tariff-free imported beef will be coming from Brazil and Argentina, among other places, as his administration works to alleviate stubbornly high prices.

“It’s coming from Argentina. It’s coming from Brazil,” Trump said at an Oval Office event surrounded by ranchers and farmers. “It’s coming from a couple of other places. We have our inspectors down. It’s very clean. It’s very good.”

Trump announced last month that the U.S. would be pausing tariffs on 300,000 metric tons of beef for 90 days to be sold at a 25 percent discount below market price. The president said it would lower costs for Americans while allowing for ranchers to build up their herds.

The announcement was quickly criticized by the cattle industry and GOP lawmakers who said that lowering prices for Americans shouldn’t come at the cost of U.S. ranchers.

“We’re doing it in a very limited fashion because our ranchers can handle it, but our ranchers really needed a little bit of help, and our ranchers want the prices to be down too,” Trump said.

The White House further defended the decision after a report that a Brazilian billionaire influenced it. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Trump met with Joesley Batista, who shares control of JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, a day before the announcement.

Batista and his brother Wesley Batista were fined in 2020 by the Justice Department over charges that they violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by using funds obtained through a bribery scheme to expand operations in the U.S.

The tariff pause also follows the unrelated recall of nearly 30,000 pounds of Argentinian beef that had been distributed in Texas and Florida.

Trump was behind the Resolute Desk on Friday to sign two executive orders, one that allows ranchers and farmers to butcher, process, package and sell their own products and another that requires country-of-origin labeling across all foreign beef.

Trump said the big four processors in the U.S. beef sector — Tyson Foods, JBS S.A., Cargill and National Beef Packing Co. — have a “monopoly” on the industry.

“I’ve heard all about it. I’ve been listening to it … and they say they’re a very nasty group, very difficult to deal with,” he said of the processors. “And they cost our farmers a lot of money, and they cost our ranchers a lot of money, and they cost the public a lot of money in grief, and we’re not going to let it happen any longer.”

When asked about the timeline on the country-of-origin labeling, Trump said he would need to go through Capitol Hill.

“We’re putting it in front of Congress right away,” he said. “It should be no problem.”