Please Love Someone Else
Michael Cohen
There’s a moment, somewhere between narcissism and national policy, where Donald Trump seems to confuse America’s heartland for one of his ex-wives; he claims to love them, then screws them over, then insists it’s for their own good. “The Cattle Ranchers, who I love,” he wrote this week, before announcing a plan that would basically gut the very industry he claims to adore. In Trump’s America, love always comes with a non-disclosure agreement—and apparently, a side of imported Argentine beef.
Let’s be clear: when the president of the United States tells you he’s looking out for you, it’s usually because you’re about to get hit by the truck he’s driving. This time, it’s America’s ranchers under the wheels. After years of drought, labor shortages, and skyrocketing feed costs, many small cattle producers were finally beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. Then Trump—the self-proclaimed “America First” president—decides it’s time to “help” by buying cheaper beef from Argentina.
The move, supposedly designed to “lower prices,” is about as sensible as handing out umbrellas in a hurricane. Sure, it sounds good. But importing more foreign beef doesn’t magically make U.S. steaks cheaper; it just kneecaps American ranchers already limping from decades of market manipulation by the corporate meatpacking cartel.
And that’s the part Trump either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care to. The U.S. beef market isn’t “free” in any meaningful sense. Four companies—Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef—control over 80% of processing. They set prices, they fix supply, and when caught doing it, they write a check, call it a settlement, and go back to business as usual. Recently, Tyson and Cargill paid out $87.5 million in a class-action lawsuit over price-fixing—chump change compared to what they made gouging ranchers and consumers alike.
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yes INDEED 
