In an American Midwest grocery store, a pound of ground beef now costs 79% more than it did in early 2019, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That squeeze on household budgets, more than any abstract free trade debate, is what pushed President Donald Trump to promise on Wednesday that he will review the rules governing beef processing in the country, even as he keeps a separate pledge to temporarily lower tariffs on imported beef.

Trump made the comment on host Glenn Beck's radio program, after Beck suggested that cutting red tape at the Department of Agriculture would let smaller ranchers slaughter their own cattle instead of relying on large processors. 'That could be a great thing for the ranchers,' Trump replied, then sharpened his tone: 'I've only heard bad things about it, it's four companies, and it's a monopoly.'

The four companies Trump referred to control roughly 85% of all beef processing in the United States: Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS USA and National Beef Packing Co. Two of them, JBS USA and National Beef, are owned by Brazilian companies JBS and MBRF. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice was already investigating whether these processors were artificially inflating prices paid by consumers.

What changes, for whom

The deregulation talk adds to a measure Trump had already announced the previous week: a temporary tariff cut meant to rein in beef prices, which are at record highs in American supermarkets.

• For 90 days, the United States will allow imports of up to 300,000 tons of beef destined for ground beef production without tariffs beyond the quota
• Trump expects that volume to reach consumers at a price 25% lower than what is currently charged in the American market
• The measure aims to ease the market while the U.S. cattle herd, which has shrunk in recent years, rebuilds

American producers themselves, however, pushed back. The American Farm Bureau Federation, the sector's main lobbying group, formally asked Trump to reverse course. In a letter sent Tuesday, the group's president, Zippy Duvall, said the measure 'will hurt... United States ranchers, who work tirelessly to produce food for American families.' Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that she did not even know which countries were included in Trump's tariff reduction announcement.

The episode exposes a tension inside Trump's own political base: ranchers who want higher tariffs to protect domestic cattle prices on one side, consumers squeezed by rising grocery bills on the other, and a president trying to balance both without a clear answer on which countries will benefit from the import quota, a question with direct implications for Brazilian meatpackers JBS and MBRF, which supply much of the U.S. market through their American subsidiaries.