Massie, Greene slam Trump's move to lower beef prices
The Hill · C · trust 65/100
Comments: by Sarah Davis - 08/21/26 11:43 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Sarah Davis - 08/21/26 11:43 AM ET Comments: Link copied NOW PLAYING Two Republicans pushed back on the Trump administration’s Friday decision to temporarily lift certain tariffs on imported ground beef in an effort to bring down prices for American consumers ahead of the midterm elections.
President Trump announced in a Truth Social post Friday morning that he had finalized “a deal to substantially lower the price of ground beef for working American families.”
The president said his administration will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef to be imported without an “out-of-quota tariff” in the next 90 days.
The imported product would be sold at 25 percent below market price — a move Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie (R) called a “slap in the face to American cattlemen & consumers.”
“Worse than socialism! Dumping foreign beef in U.S. markets can temporarily lower prices but it won’t incentivize American farmers to raise more beef,” Massie wrote on social media .
The GOP lawmaker urged the Trump administration to bring back labels indicating which countries products were imported from and called on Congress to pass his Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption (PRIME) Act .
The PRIME Act would permit states to allow farmers and ranchers to slaughter their livestock at local slaughterhouses and reduce reliance on the select meat processing centers approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Former GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) also joined in on criticizing the move, accusing the Trump administration of “making it even harder for American beef ranchers and producers.”
“Now they will be undercut by foreign imported beef, as they have been hit financially with high cost of fertilizer and diesel from Trump’s war with Iran,” Greene wrote in a Friday social media post . “The Trump admins attempt to lower the cost of beef is American beef LAST and foreign beef FIRST.”
A historically small U.S. cattle herd and high consumer demand has driven up the domestic cost of ground beef.
The average price of 100 percent ground beef per pound was around $6.89 in July — a more than 10 percent increase from a year ago, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data shared by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis .
Trump said Friday the new move will “reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again.”
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