When President Donald Trump teased that he had “worked our magic” on a new beef deal, a lot of shoppers heard exactly what they wanted: cheaper steaks, finally.
But on Yanasa TV, homesteader and agriculture commentator Charlie Rankin urged viewers to look past the headline. In his view, importing more South American beef to push down prices is a short-term fix that weakens American agriculture in the long run.
And if the “magic” echoes earlier moves on eggs, he argues, it may actually entrench the biggest meatpackers while sidelining small ranchers.
This isn’t a left-versus-right rant from Rankin; he goes out of his way to say he’s supported many Trump-era farm ideas and praises Agriculture Secretary Rollins.
His gripe is more basic: incentives and structure. If policy keeps funneling power to global packers and layering costly red tape on small producers, no amount of magical thinking will rebuild a resilient, local food economy.
Below is what Rankin says, and why it matters.
The Promise Of A ‘Magic Beef Deal’
Rankin starts with timing. Trump reportedly met with Argentina’s libertarian president and spoke with Brazil’s president right around the moment he hinted at the beef-price “magic.”
Both Argentina and Brazil are heavyweight beef exporters, especially to China, and both have every reason to expand market share wherever they can.
So, Rankin suspects the “deal” is about opening the U.S. to more South American beef, not fixing domestic bottlenecks.
He’s blunt: yes, a flood of imports can knock prices down for a bit. But that pressure falls hardest on American ranchers already dealing with thin margins, drought cycles, limited grazing, and packer leverage. In his telling, it’s the classic quick hit that feels consumer-friendly now and boomerangs later when local capacity erodes.
Even if you’re agnostic about imports, it’s hard to argue with the incentives. A surge of lower-cost beef gives packers more sourcing options and more negotiating power against ranchers. If domestic supply later tightens (weather, herd cycles), the system leans even more on imports. That’s not sovereignty – it’s dependency.
The Egg Playbook, Replayed With Beef
Rankin draws a direct line to the “magic” egg deal earlier this year, when imports from places like Turkey were used to cool sky-high egg prices after avian influenza crushed supply.
Consumers got relief. But Rankin says the country lost a moment to rewire the market, the same kind of moment we saw during the pandemic when farm stands popped up and neighbors bought direct. When the federal response channeled supply back through big players, that bottom-up momentum fizzled.
He sees the beef move the same way: a lever pulled from D.C. that stabilizes shelves through imports rather than unleashing small U.S. producers to meet demand.
If policy always “rescues” the shelf price with foreign product, local producers never get a clean price signal to justify investment in herds, fencing, and processing. Markets can’t evolve around central price manipulation.
I’ll add: there’s a difference between tactical imports for crises and turning them into a standing pressure valve. The first can be prudent. The second slowly hollows out domestic muscle.
Why Cheaper Imports Don’t Cure Price Pain
Rankin cites a simple, uncomfortable trend: as imports have risen, retail beef prices also rose. He points to a multi-year period where U.S. beef imports climbed roughly 43% while consumer prices climbed about 42%.
Correlation isn’t causation, but the point is worth chewing on. If imports were a reliable price “fix,” you’d expect more obvious and lasting price relief.
Part of the answer is market structure. Rankin argues the current system leaves too much power with a few global packers – JBS (Brazil), Tyson, and others – who can arbitrage supply across borders, ship for their own advantage, and keep strong pricing power at the shelf even as they pay ranchers less for cattle.
Whether you agree with the diagnosis, it rings true that imports affect packer leverage first, not necessarily the shopper’s weekly bill.
The Real Bottleneck: We Box Out Small Producers
If there’s a villain in Rankin’s story, it isn’t Argentine gauchos – it’s red tape.
On the ground, he says, small ranchers trying to sell local meat slam into regulatory walls. The hoops to get even a basic meat handler’s license – dedicated freezers with external temp monitors, rodent-proof rooms, inspections – can mean $20,000 or more just to get legally set up, before you sell a single pound.
And that’s for farmers who don’t even store meat long-term, but transport USDA- or state-inspected product from the processor straight to the buyer.
The result? Lots of would-be sellers give up. Meanwhile, the processors who can take horned cattle or handle specialty runs are often the same facilities small ranchers can’t access as customers.
Rankin’s example is personal: he sold most of his horned cattle at auction because nearby plants wouldn’t take them for retail processing. The winning bidders? The very slaughterhouses that wouldn’t accept his animals. It’s maddening, and for the little guy, it’s normal.
My read: some requirements protect buyers. But the system we’ve built makes it cheaper to import meat from 5,000 miles away than to buy a steer from 50 miles away. That’s upside down.
The PRIME Act, And Why State Reforms Keep Hitting Federal Walls
Rankin argues that a bipartisan fix already exists: the PRIME Act, which would allow intrastate sales of meat processed at custom (non-federal) facilities under state rules. That matters in places like New Hampshire, where farmers can’t sell state-inspected beef because there’s no state program – only federal.
Lawmakers in Concord tried to craft a state-level workaround to let farmers sell direct from custom processors. But because federal law governs, it ran into preemption. The will is there. The framework is not.
His bottom line: let states unlock local markets and trust smaller plants with appropriate, proportionate rules.
Don’t copy-paste the sanitation model designed for facilities killing thousands of animals per day onto a small-town processor handling a few dozen a week. Scale matters.
If the rumored deal invites more Argentine and Brazilian beef, Rankin says two winners are obvious: global packers with South American footprints and U.S. commodity traders who ride the spread.
Who loses? The mid-tier and small U.S. ranchers whose breakeven disappears just when they’re looking to expand. The local processors that never get built because investors see a policy risk – why finance a small plant if Washington can whipsaw prices with a shipload of imports? And ultimately, rural towns that miss out on the steady jobs a regional plant and retail hub create.
I’d add one more: consumers who want choice. When policy squeezes the little outfits, we get fewer labels, fewer direct-to-farm options, and a heavier reliance on the same four brands, no matter what the packaging says.
A Better Path: Deregulate, Decentralize, Rebuild
Rankin’s prescription isn’t complicated:
- Stop reflexively importing to manage price spikes. Use imports like a spare tire, not a permanent solution.
- Pass the PRIME Act (or comparable reforms) so farmers can legally sell intrastate from custom plants.
- Right-size licensing so a farmer moving inspected meat from processor to buyer doesn’t need a $20,000 buildout just to hold a freezer.
- Encourage local processing capacity so ranchers can add value near home—horns, heritage breeds, niche cuts, and all.
This approach isn’t anti-trade; it’s pro-capillaries. Big arteries move food across continents. Capillaries keep towns alive. Rankin’s point is that a healthy system needs both, and we’ve starved one to fatten the other.
If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that resilience lives close to home. Rankin remembers the surge in farm-stand sales and neighborhood meat shares when grocery shelves thinned. He saw a genuine cultural shift starting – people meeting their farmers, trusting them, and paying for quality.
Then, the policy pendulum swung back. Big packers reasserted control. Imports filled gaps. The nascent local rebuild never had time to become permanent.
He worries that a “magic beef deal” will lock in that pattern. Prices dip, ranchers pause expansion, investors balk, and consumers slide back into default habits. Meanwhile, imports creep from 10% to 22% of our beef consumption, and the leverage sits farther from our communities each year.
My final thought: if you want everyday prices to fall and stay lower, you need more competitors, more plants, more direct channels – not fewer. The cheapest steak this month isn’t a win if it costs you the butcher, the rancher, and the town five years from now.
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Ed spent his childhood in the backwoods of Maine, where harsh winters taught him the value of survival skills. With a background in bushcraft and off-grid living, Ed has honed his expertise in fire-making, hunting, and wild foraging. He writes from personal experience, sharing practical tips and hands-on techniques to thrive in any outdoor environment. Whether it’s primitive camping or full-scale survival, Ed’s advice is grounded in real-life challenges.
