By Bill Bullard
Foreign imports are gutting U.S. ranching. The American Beef Labeling Act would finally let shoppers choose American beef.
Summer is almost over. Little did you know that many of the hamburgers you grilled this season were imported from Australia, Mexico, and Brazil.
Unless you have cattle herds roaming near your home, your beef either comes from the American Midwest and West or, increasingly, is imported. We have a beef deficit, not because demand is off the charts, but because state and federal government look the other way while global meatpacking giants like JBS, Marfrig, Tyson, and Cargill have monopolistic control over their markets, and because they’re being priced out by imports brought in by these same global meatpackers.
How can we possibly reverse course?
It’s a personal choice to buy American. President Trump encouraged this in his first term with his Buy American and Hire American Executive Order. This was followed by the new America First Trade Policy Executive Order in his second term, which seeks remedies to our ever-expanding trillion-dollar trade deficit. Agriculture used to be a surplus business. With the exception of soy and some grains, American agriculture is a deficit contributor now.
Cattle production tops America’s list of domestically produced agriculture commodities, though the 2024 trade deficit in beef and cattle was over 2.5 billion pounds in volume and around $3.9 billion in value.
The purpose of these policy initiatives is straightforward. By encouraging Americans to purchase U.S.-produced goods, more investments will be made to support local production, and America will overcome its dependency on imports. Balanced, fair trade is part and parcel to these goals as persistent trade deficits and the price-depressing effects of import floods from low-cost countries reduce opportunities to increase domestic production. That’s true for any good you produce, whether it is some widget in a factory or raising cattle for food.
Suppose you want to support America’s farmers and ranchers through your everyday food purchases at the grocery store. You can buy fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, apples, green beans, and peaches with a “Produce of USA” label, or chicken and lamb with a “Born, Raised, and Harvested in the USA” label, or fish and shellfish with a “Product of the USA” label accompanied by either a “Wild Caught” or “Farm Raised” designation.
But what if you wanted to do the same for beef, the one farm segment that provides the economic cornerstone for nearly every rural region in every state? To do that, you would need to either live near a ranch that sells its own beef, join a subscriber program to a ranch far from home, or – the easiest way of all – look for beef at your grocery store that labels where the cattle were born, raised, and harvested.
But wait! You can’t do that at your local grocer like you can other food items. You can’t choose to buy American beef at the grocery store. And here’s why:
Global corporations don’t like the president’s initiatives. They are not interested in strengthening America’s ranching industry or reducing America’s dependency on foreign supply chains, especially when they have investments in those foreign sources or can improve profit margins by importing. Instead, they are switching out American producers and replacing them with beef and cattle from lower-cost countries; all while profiting from the American consumer.
The beef trade is a lucrative business for them. The United States is the world’s largest beef consumer. For decades, these multinationals have been sourcing cheaper beef and cheaper cattle from foreign countries and selling that foreign beef with a U.S. food safety inspection label, which leads consumers to believe it must have come from an American farm. But that inspection label does not denote origin at all, as it is required to be on all beef sold in the U.S., whether foreign or domestic.
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“American beef” now comes from 20 or so countries, led by Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. They get a U.S. food safety inspection label on their product when it enters the United States and then sell it alongside domestic beef with the same label. That means foreign beef is a direct substitute for American beef, and consumers have no choice in deciding to buy American beef because that decision is not permitted by the multinationals.
Imported beef has reduced cattle herds and ranching opportunities. About 22 percent of the beef consumed here today comes from foreign-born cattle. This undermines American ranchers. We have lost over half of our cattle ranchers and nearly a quarter of our breeding cow herd in just one generation – an ongoing exodus that is hollowing out rural America and making us dependent on imports. Furthermore, what family member will want to take over the ranch in a market saturated with imports? They’ll sell their land to real estate developers or turn it into a solar power station, as is being promoted in upstate New York.
We can do something about this.
One way is through the American Beef Labeling Act of 2025 (S.421), a bipartisan bill introduced by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). The bill requires retail grocers to label beef as to where the animal was born, raised, and harvested. The bill empowers consumers, not the multinational importers who couldn’t care less where your food comes from. Keep in mind, many of these importers are lobbying for the USDA not to continue a ban on the import of live Mexican cattle while Mexico is experiencing a disgusting screwworm outbreak.
This is the missing element of President Trump’s policy initiatives to revitalize and strengthen U.S. production – it’s what is needed for American consumers to help put America first. If you agree, call your members of Congress to urge them to pass the American Beef Labeling Act. If it is good enough for chicken and fish, it has to be good enough for beef. If you like the image of cattle herds roaming in the grass and find that quaint or part of your vision of Americana, then keeping ranchers in business might depend on whether or not consumers care about making Mexican hamburgers or American ones.
Bill Bullard is the Chief Executive Officer of R-Calf, an independent ranchers group, and a board member at the Coalition for a Prosperous America.
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