For Immediate Release
Contact: R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard
Phone: 406-252-2516; r-calfusa@r-calfusa.com
BILLINGS, Mont. (Oct. 17, 2025) – Recent media reports indicate President Trump is working to lower beef prices in the United States, with some reports indicating Argentina may play a role in the administration’s price-lowering strategy.
Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF USA, the nation’s largest cattle association that exclusively represents cattle farmers and ranchers, issued the following statement in response to the president’s efforts.
“We appreciate President Trump’s interest in addressing the U.S. beef market, which has been producing all-time record-high consumer beef prices. We urge the president to address the fundamental problems in the beef market, not just its symptom.
“The symptom is that the U.S. has shrunk its beef cow herd to such a low level that it can no longer produce enough beef to satisfy domestic demand.
“But the fundamental problem is that decades of failed trade policies have allowed cheap, undifferentiated imports to displace the domestic cow herd, driving hundreds of thousands of cattle farmers and ranchers and millions of domestic beef cows out of the domestic beef supply chain.
“In addition, the nation’s beef packers and beef retailers have been allowed to concentrate to monopolistic levels, enabling them to interfere with competitive market forces.
“Just over a generation ago, cattle producers received over 60% of the consumer’s beef dollar and the packer and retailer received under 40%, and at that time consumer beef prices were affordable. But since that time, the packers’ and retailers’ share of the consumer beef dollar grew disproportionately to the cattle producers’ share. By 2021, the allocation was completely reversed, with packers and retailers receiving over 60% and producers receiving under 40% of the consumer’s beef dollar.
“In other words, the monopolistic control by the concentrated beef packers and beef retailers, and their access to unlimited, cheaper imports, enable them to exploit producers at one end of the beef supply chain and consumers on the other.
“Attempting to lower domestic beef prices simply by inviting even more imports will both exacerbate and accelerate the ongoing dismantling of the domestic beef supply chain.
“The chart below clearly shows the long-term and ever-growing disconnect between cattle prices and consumer beef prices.”
“We implore the president to fix the fundamentally broken beef market by protecting the domestic cattle industry from excessive, price-depressing imports and from the monopolistic practices of the beef packers and retailers that caused our industry to shrink over the past several decades, resulting in today’s inflated beef prices.
“Such action will incentivize our domestic industry to rebuild and expand to meet our nation’s national security interest of achieving self-reliance in beef production and ensure that consumers pay a competition-driven – not the current monopolistic-driven – price for beef.”
For more information, watch: “Why Is the Herd Shrinking Amid Record Beef Prices?” | Weekly Address | R-CALF USA.
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Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) is the largest producer-only cattle trade association in the United States. It is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle and sheep industries. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com or call 406-252-2516.