On Aug. 21, the Trump administration announced that imported ground beef would be tax-exempt and bought at a price 25% lower than market value. It's an effort to reduce the price of beef at the grocery store, but some local ranchers say it's going to "brutally" impact them.
Jordan Maddox, the Dallas Observer's social media editor, and her colleague Lauren Drewes Daniels joined NTX Now hosts Miranda Suarez and Ron Corning to discuss how the change is impacting North Texas ranchers and consumers. Maddox wrote about those impacts in her latest piece, "'It’s going to brutally impact them': How imported beef could devastate North Texas cattle ranches."
These interview highlights have been edited for length and clarity. To hear the conversation in full, click the 'listen' button above.
Maddox spoke with Hayden Scarborough, one of the buyers at the auction and the son of one of the market’s owners. He told her the beef tariffs were actually helping Texas ranchers. It kept the screwworm outbreak from spreading across the Mexico border and were able to grow their domestic farms.
Scarborough argued for patience — that with a little bit more time to build up herds again, prices would come down.
"One of the main points that he highlighted was that other ranchers had told him that they felt they were finally getting the value of their beef," Maddox explained. "There was finally enough for, in his words, them to start rebuilding. So, this 90-day window that is being kind of marketed as a way to rebuild these herds is actually undermining that."
Another rancher Maddox spoke to said that because the pause on tariffs are only for ground beef, most local ranchers wouldn't be as heavily impacted, since they tend to sell higher-end cuts. But the announcement itself has already impacted the beef industry at large.
Drewes Daniels said on the day Trump made the announcement about beef imports, the price of one cow dropped $400 compared to the last auction.
"It instantly lowered the prices," she said. "They're getting less money, and so they're not going to have enough money to expand the herds, to raise the herds."
Maddox compared the process of buying a cow at auction to the stock market.
"The buyers go off of futures, which is either how much that they can get for the cow in the future or how much it's going to cost to raise them," she said. "So, it's pretty much putting money against a hypothetical."
It's still the beginning of the 90-day window without tariffs on ground beef, and Maddox said the full picture of how this will impact ranchers is still being determined.
In the meantime, she and Drewes Daniels are encouraging Texans to buy their beef from a local rancher.
"You can order big boxes of steaks and meat and get everything you need for a few months," Drewes Daniels said. "You can order a half a cow or a whole cow. There are a lot of local ranchers where you can do this."
"I wish that Texans just made that more of a habit, to support our local ranchers all the time," she added.
Miranda Suarez and Ron Corning are the hosts of KERA's NTX Now. Got a tip? Email Miranda at msuarez@kera.org or Ron at rcorning@kera.org.
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