Just fucking with everyone....

Trump pauses quota tariff on 300,000 tons of beef ahead of midterms

Domestic farmers and ranchers are likely to protest any policy that floods the U.S. market with imported product.

By Gregory Svirnovskiy

President Donald Trump on Friday morning said he would exempt from tariffs 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef, the administration’s latest bid to lower prices ahead of midterm elections in which voters appear set to punish the GOP for the rising cost of living.

“This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again,” he wrote on Truth Social. The administration had secured a commitment, he said, “that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.”

The president framed the measure as an important tool to let ranchers grow the U.S. beef herd without facing market pressures. But he also shifted blame onto former President Joe Biden, whom he continues to claim bears responsibility for the sky-high prices that have hampered the president’s popularity since returning to the White House some 20 months ago.

“As everyone knows, under President Biden, beef prices soared at their fastest rate and the American beef herd fell to its smallest size in modern history,” he wrote.

Voters, meanwhile, blame the administration for the rising prices. The biggest failure of the president’s second term — many of his own supporters told The POLITICO Poll in July — is the cost of living.

It’s not the first time the president has weighed a temporary tariff reduction on beef. Trump shelved a long-telegraphed White House plan to do just that in May, amid fierce resistance from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Domestic farmers and ranchers are likely to protest any policy that floods the U.S. market with imported product.