AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump and many cattle ranchers across the country have beef right now. Last month, the White House announced that it would quadruple the amount of beef that it imports from Argentina at lower tariff rates. Now, the president hopes the plan will lower beef prices for Americans, but many economists are skeptical, and cattle ranchers are concerned about how all of this will impact their bottom line. Oren Lesmeister is a fifth-generation cattle rancher in South Dakota and a former Democratic state lawmaker there. He joins us now. Welcome.
OREN LESMEISTER: Thank you.
CHANG: So first, I just want to know that you voted for President Trump despite being a Democrat. What was your personal reaction to Trump's plan for the American beef industry?
LESMEISTER: Well, initially, I thought it was great. He was going to make farmers and ranchers first, America first and agriculture. Then, lately here, it seems like he's kind of jerked a rug right out from underneath us with the tariff talks coming off and Argentina beef quadrupling coming in and possibly other countries bringing in meat, also, right in the heart of the cattle run, when all these producers are selling their calves for the fall. And they only get one paycheck a year, and this is it, so it really hurt a lot of producers.
CHANG: The timing was especially bad, you're saying, for the president to have said this.
LESMEISTER: Correct. The timing couldn't have been worse.
CHANG: Well, the thing that is undeniable right now is that the cost of beef is high for consumers. Ground beef is up 51% since 2020. So can you just help me understand that? How did prices get so steep?
LESMEISTER: Well, it's happened over a long period of time. You know, we've got multiple factors happening within our ag industry. One is we have a lot of aging producers that are just looking to get out, whether or not they have anybody following up them behind or not, or if they're just selling out. We had severe droughts in the central plains. And then you turn around, and you have wildfires that took out a lot of pasture ground and actually killed some livestock and things. That just depleted our herd numbers. Then you take in imported beef that comes in cheaper. It makes it really hard to compete with it at our cost of input. So some of the guys just were liquidating cattle.
CHANG: Well, you're indicating a bunch of external factors. And President Trump, he's urging cattle ranchers here in the U.S. to take action. He wrote on social media, quote, that they "have to get their prices down." How much is the price of beef up to ranchers themselves?
LESMEISTER: Zero. We have no control over the price of beef at the store. When we sell our cattle to a feed lot or a packer or whatever, it's completely out of our hands at that point. We're a price taker. We're not a price maker.
CHANG: OK. Well, that said, the president says he's going to fix the high price of beef right now by importing beef from Argentina - your competitor. If that plan does help drive down the price of beef and it helps everyday Americans put food on the table, explain why that is a bad thing.
LESMEISTER: Well, the amount of beef that he wants to import, even, you know, by quadrupling from Argentina, you know, my personal view is the consumer will not see hardly a penny of difference at the grocery store. A lot of that's lean-cut beef that we make into grind - grind with our premium beef to become hamburger. You know, you look at the amount of it, I think the packers would absorb it, make profit and sell it at the same price as they basically are right now.
CHANG: But ultimately, Oren, what is the solution to lowering prices of beef in America? You say that Argentinian beef is not the answer. What is the solution? Like, what will it take to make beef more affordable for Americans?
LESMEISTER: Well, just let the market play out, truthfully. When the American people cannot afford beef, they will start backing away. They'll go to other proteins, you know, whether it's pork or chicken or whatever. And I hope they don't, but that's just the reality of it.
CHANG: So you want to see...
LESMEISTER: And that's when...
CHANG: ...That happen.
LESMEISTER: ...We'll...
CHANG: You want to see some leveling out, even if it means people stop eating beef for a while, stop buying beef for a while?
LESMEISTER: Correct. Because that's a true market, then. That's a true supply and demand market. That's when we've hit the breakpoint on what people will pay instead of having a person come in and say that we're just going to import more beef to drive this down. That just takes the opportunity for the American producer. I mean, it takes it right out of your hands.
CHANG: That is Oren Lesmeister, a fifth-generation cattle rancher in South Dakota. Thank you so much, Oren.
LESMEISTER: Oh, thank you. I appreciate the time.
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