By Luis Fernando Chavez
Hamburger lovers, beware: the latest twist in the beef price crisis is deeply unappetizing.
On August 21, Trump announced a 90-day waiver of tariffs and quotas letting in up to 660 million additional pounds of imported beef duty-free. The White House is selling this move as a fix for surging prices. However, importing more beef likely won’t cut consumer prices, but it will drive down the price the ranchers who backed Trump receive, already generating ire from them and some congressional GOP. In a recent study by our Rethink Trade team, Hamburger Hell: Record High Consumer Beef Prices that Tariffs Haven’t Caused, Imports Haven’t Lowered, and the Cattle Cycle Can’t Explain but that Can Be Fixed, we showed that consumer prices kept rising after previous quota and tariff waivers. That is because four packers — Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef — control 85% of beef processing. Just 20 firms handle 98% of cattle slaughter. The new imports, which are scrap cuts that go into ground meat, are sent to the firms that make hamburger and have market power to simply pocket the added profit from using cheap imports while continuing to charge us a lot.
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Originally published in The Economic Populist — a project of the American Economic Liberties Project.