Texas Ranchers FURIOUS At Trump

Person speaking at a podium with hand raised

Texas ranchers are discovering what happens when a president they helped elect decides cheap beef at the checkout line matters more than the people who raise the cattle.

Story Snapshot

Texas cattle producers are openly challenging Trump’s plan to flood the market with low-tariff Argentine beef.
Beef prices at the store are high, but ranchers say more imports will crush herd recovery and family operations.
Animal-disease fears from foot-and-mouth in Argentina add a high-stakes biosecurity gamble.
Conservative rural allies like Sid Miller and NCBA are breaking ranks over this single policy fight.

Why Texas ranchers feel betrayed by a friendly White House

Texas ranchers spent years enduring drought, high feed costs, and forced herd liquidation, only now beginning to see black ink after a long stretch of red. Government data show retail beef prices hit record highs in September 2025, with average ground beef climbing well above levels from just three years earlier.[1] The Trump administration seized on those prices as political proof that consumers need relief and proposed to quadruple low-tariff imports of Argentine beef as a quick pressure valve.[1][4]

Ranchers see that move very differently. Texas is the nation’s largest cattle state, built on small and mid-sized family ranches that live or die by cattle prices. When the White House promises a wave of cheaper foreign beef, producers hear a clear message: accept lower prices just as conditions finally turned in your favor. Central Texas rancher and veterinarian Jared Ranly told CBS Austin that talk of big import increases has already rattled investor confidence and injected new volatility into a fragile market.[1]

The economic mechanics behind the uproar

Beef prices do not rise simply because of greedy ranchers or lack of imports. Years of drought hammered Texas and the Plains, forcing widespread herd reductions and delaying rebuilding.[1][2] Fewer cattle mean tighter domestic supply, which naturally pushes wholesale and retail prices higher. Cattle economics follow straightforward supply-and-demand logic: when herds shrink, prices rise until they entice producers to rebuild, at which point supply increases and prices ease without political intervention.

The Argentine import plan disrupts that rebalancing. If the United States suddenly adds a large volume of low-tariff South American beef on top of domestic production, live-cattle and feeder-cattle prices will likely fall, especially as herds begin to recover.[2][3] That hits cow-calf operators hardest, since they absorb years of risk only to watch policy cut the payoff. Texas Farm Bureau’s Tracy Tomascik has emphasized that high prices largely reflect herd shrinkage and that markets can correct as producers rebuild, without using foreign supply to undercut domestic recovery.[1]

Disease risk, FMD, and conservative common sense

Price pain is only half the story; disease risk is the other half that keeps producers awake at night. Argentina has a history of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), a highly contagious livestock illness that, if reintroduced to the United States, could shut down exports, cripple interstate cattle movement, and devastate rural economies.[3] The Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) calls that risk “serious” and strongly opposes expanding imports from an FMD-present country, urging a pause on the plan.[3]

Conservative values of prudence, risk management, and national self-reliance point in the same direction. TSCRA argues that ramping up imports now undermines efforts to stabilize the market «through natural herd rebuilding» and exposes the nation to a catastrophic tail-risk event that no short-term grocery savings can justify.[3] American biosecurity took decades and billions of dollars to build; discarding that margin of safety to chase a few cents off a pound of ground beef contradicts the very notion of putting America’s producers first.

Trump’s allies push back with an “America-first” alternative

The most politically striking part of this fight is who is leading the opposition. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a long-time Trump ally, publicly rejects the Argentine import strategy while stressing that he still supports the president.[4] Miller told Texas Public Radio he has already contacted top Trump aides and submitted a five-point alternative plan to lower prices by strengthening, not sidelining, U.S. beef production.[4] That plan includes reversing the agricultural trade deficit, expanding grazing access, and using tax incentives to grow the domestic herd.[4]

National organizations are equally blunt. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association declared it “cannot stand behind the President while he undercuts the future of family farmers and ranchers.” For a group that typically aligns with Republican administrations and supported earlier deregulation, that language signals a rare public break. TSCRA, meanwhile, has pressed the Texas congressional delegation and the USDA to slow or stop the import expansion, framing it as a direct threat to member livelihoods and the nation’s FMD-free status.[3]

What this clash reveals about populism, prices, and rural power

This conflict exposes a tension running through modern populist politics: governing for the consumer at the cash register can collide with governing for the producer who makes that product possible. Trump’s team is betting that visible price cuts on a staple like beef matter more than the quieter damage to ranch balance sheets. Texas ranchers argue that once you hollow out domestic capacity, you do not just hurt rural families; you weaken America’s food security and hand leverage to foreign suppliers.

From a conservative, common-sense standpoint, rewarding domestic producers who endured years of hardship to keep the national herd alive aligns better with long-term national interest than importing cheaper beef from a country battling FMD. Ranchers are not suddenly turning left; they are asking whether America-first trade policy still includes the Americans who run cows on grass in Texas. If this proposal moves forward over their objections, the answer they hear will echo far beyond the cattle auction barn.