White House plans to reduce barriers to beef imports in an effort to lower prices - Politico

The president will sign two executive orders Monday afternoon to “address short-term supply issues in the U.S. beef market by expanding imports,” a White House official told POLITICO. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP

President Donald Trump is planning to temporarily reduce tariffs on beef imports in an effort to reduce consumer prices, according to three people with knowledge of the plans.

The president will sign two executive orders Monday afternoon to “address short-term supply issues in the U.S. beef market by expanding imports,” a White House official told POLITICO. The beef tariffs will be suspended for 200 days, according to three other people familiar with the strategy.

The move, which is likely to infuriate key Republican allies in the cattle industry, is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to address affordability concerns ahead of this year’s midterm elections. The Wall Street Journal first reported Trump’s plan.

Trump has been focused on the stubbornly-high cost of beef for months, holding private meetings with Cabinet officials and industry representatives at the White House to find solutions. The average price of a pound of ground beef is $6.70 as of March, up nearly 21 percent since the president took office.

Administration officials are looking to include some deregulatory actions and policy changes to cushion the shock to ranchers who are typically supportive of Trump and have benefited from the higher prices, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the plans that aren’t yet public.

Trump was met with outcry from the cattle industry and on Capitol Hill when he suggested last fall that his administration would increase imports from Argentina. The White House ultimately decided to more than quadruple previous levels of beef imports from the South American country, but included a group of industry-friendly policy moves — including limits on what kind of beef can be imported and an end date on the increased imports — to soften the blow.

Beef prices in the U.S. have been driven higher by a combination of high demand, drought, diminished herd size across the country and the halt of livestock imports from Mexico amid concerns about the spread of the parasitic New World screwworm south of the border.

Myah Ward, Meredith Lee Hill and Kevin Bogardus contributed to this report.

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