Faced with record-high prices for steak and ground beef, the Trump administration said Monday that it plans to reduce tariffs on imported beef products.
Beef prices have risen about 20% since Trump took office and have been one of the key drivers of headline inflation, which continues to run above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target rate. Over the past five years, beef prices are up about 40%.
Trump’s executive order reportedly would suspend the annual tariff-rate quota — a two-tier system that charges a higher tariff rate on imported goods from a specific country once a certain threshold has been reached, for the purpose of protecting domestic industries by limiting overall import volumes.
In an example provided by The Wall Street Journal, Brazil can export 65,000 tons per year to the United States tariff-free. But Brazil, which is now the largest beef exporter in the world, hit that limit in the first month of the year, which means all additional beef imports from Brazil since that time have been hit with a 26% tariff.
The sums involved are not trivial, the Journal noted: In 2025, Brazil beef shipments to the United States had a value of $1.75 billion, a record.
Overall, Americans consume about 29 billion pounds of beef per year, 20% of which is imported. In 2026, beef imports are expected to hit a record 6 billion pounds.
Boosting herds: Trump is expected to sign a second executive order addressing another cause of high beef prices: the shrinking U.S. cattle herd. Struggling with drought and rising production costs, beef producers have reduced the size of the U.S. herd to the lowest level in 75 years, even as consumer demand has remained strong, driving up prices.
The White House has not provided details on how it plans to boost the national cattle herd, but the Journal says that Trump is expected to direct the Small Business Administration to make loans available to ranchers; reduce federal protections for cattle-killing wolves covered by the Endangered Species Act; and ease regulations on cattle herd management.
Whatever the details, experts say rebuilding the herd will take time. “The fact of the matter is there’s really nothing anybody can do to change this very quickly," Derrell Peel, a professor of agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University, told Fox News. “We’re in a tight supply situation that took several years to develop, and it’ll take several years to get out of it.”
Questions about viability: It’s not clear how much of an impact the White House’s moves could have on beef prices, and some critics say the administration is barking up the wrong tree. Farm Action, a progressive group that advocates for limits on corporate control in agriculture, said the administration’s approach has failed in the past.
“Previous import expansions from Argentina did not meaningfully reduce beef prices because the real problem is a highly consolidated meatpacking sector controlled by just a handful of dominant corporations,” Farm Action Research and Policy Director Sarah Carden said in a statement. “Expanding imports into a rigged and consolidated market will not lower prices for consumers or create a fairer market for ranchers. What it will do is strengthen multinational meatpackers ... while putting renewed pressure on independent U.S. cattle ranchers, who are finally beginning to recover after years of being in a deficit.”