Republican senators on Tuesday railed against the administration’s plans to import more beef during a closed-door meeting with Vice President JD Vance.
Officials said last week they would allow Argentina to ship four times as much beef to the US as it previously did at a lower tariff rate. Ranchers immediately panned the move, as did the lawmakers who represent them: Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., warned “this isn’t the way to do it.”
Vance sought to “explain what the administration is thinking” in Tuesday’s meeting, one Republican senator in attendance told Semafor.
“There were a number that really expressed … why it’s important to put America first,” the senator said, summing up Republicans’ view as: “You just threw the ranchers out and caused the beef market to plummet. And you’re not going to get anything out of it. … It’s not going to change the price of beef.”
Senators pitched Vance on other ways the administration could quickly bring down the price of beef without isolating ranchers. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said in the last week he’s talked to Trump, Vance and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer about how helping ranchers “expand our herds” will accomplish Trump’s goal more than beef imports.
“The real focus needs to be not on bringing in more beef, but working with our guys,” Hoeven said. “That’ll send a market signal right away.”
Among the ideas he and others floated to Vance on Tuesday: encouraging greater competition in the meatpacking industry, allowing more grazing on federal land, and requiring country-of-origin labeling — including as part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
“They’ve been some of the president’s strongest supporters, and they want to continue to be a strong supporter,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told Semafor. “It’s a matter of, as I said to [Vance], ‘How do we take lemons and turn them into lemonade?’ What can we do?”
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