{"id":274626,"date":"2026-08-29T11:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T11:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/274626\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T11:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T11:38:16","slug":"the-pennsylvania-cattle-industry-is-concerned-about-trumps-beef-imports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/274626\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pennsylvania cattle industry is concerned about Trump\u2019s beef imports\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pennsylvania cattle producers are joining other beef industry leaders speaking out against President Trump\u2019s effort<\/a> to lower beef prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the cost of ground beef<\/a> at an all time high, Trump is allowing 300,000 metric tons of lean beef trimmings to enter the United States over the next three months, at a reduced tariff rate, and sold at 25% below market prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes basically no sense,\u201d said Bill Devore, who runs a cattle farm in Washington County and is president of the Pennsylvania Cattlemen\u2019s Association<\/a>, which represents 11,000 cattle and dairy producers statewide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Devore noted that this is an election-time policy, but he doubts that American consumers will see much price difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a very quick band-aid for a month or two, but it\u2019ll just go back up,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s going to affect the American farmer in the long run; it\u2019s going to hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beef prices at the supermarket are up in part because consumer demand has been high, according to Becca Weir, assistant professor of Agricultural Economics at Penn State University. At the same time, inventory is down, \u201cThere\u2019s less cows in the beef herd,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s the lowest we\u2019ve had in over 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cattle industry is working to increase herds, but it takes 3 to 4 years to raise a calf to full-grown for market. Producers have faced rising fuel and fertilizer costs and drought in recent years. \u201cWhen there\u2019s drought, there\u2019s less feed,\u201d Weir said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He Raises Grass-Fed Beef. He Believes in Climate Change. He Also Voted for Trump.<\/a><\/p>\n

Currently, the U.S. imports 417 million pounds of beef trimmings per month, she said. Weir calculates that Trump\u2019s policy will bring an additional 220 million pounds per month. But she doesn\u2019t know how that will affect prices at the supermarket.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil you have a crystal ball, I think there\u2019s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of moving pieces that it\u2019s hard to really parse out how each of the different shocks or different market implications are going to shake out,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Fall is an important time for cattle farmers to make decisions on which cows to sell and which to keep for new production. Cattle farmer Tommy Nagle, who is president of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau<\/a>,\u00a0 said Trump\u2019s new beef import policy is throwing a wrench into the price farmers can expect to get for their cattle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the market falls rapidly, it\u2019s going to put them in a very bad situation. They\u2019re gonna have cattle that they\u2019re not going to be able to break even on, and lose money,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it could require some people that unfortunately aren\u2019t going to be able to stay in business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nagle worries that could lead to the closure of some of Pennsylvania\u2019s cattle farms, reducing the local meat supply long-term.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce they start down that road of liquidating and getting out of the business, the problem is no one is really there to replace that business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting September 1, the U.S. will begin importing the discounted beef trimmings.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania cattle producers are joining other beef industry leaders speaking out against President Trump\u2019s effort to lower beef…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[115408,2470,1515,28,30,29,3857],"class_list":["post-274626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-28-august-2026-episode","tag-agriculture","tag-food","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}