The move comes after both feeder and calf markets continue to see lower prices while consumer beef prices remain high
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump on Friday accused foreign-owned meat packers of driving up the price of beef to consumers in the U.S. and asked the Department of Justice to open an investigation.
The president took aim at U.S. meat producers Friday, accusing them of artificially inflating prices and saying he’s ordered a Justice Department probe into the beef industry.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump said he’d asked the Justice Department to “immediately begin an investigation into the Meat Packing Companies” who he claimed “are driving up the price of Beef through Illicit Collusion, Price Fixing, and Price Manipulation.”
The president went on to claim that American ranchers were unfairly taking blame for the actions of what he called “Majority Foreign Owned Meat Packers, who artificially inflate prices, and jeopardize the security of our Nation’s food supply.”
He subsequently claimed in a second post that something was “fishy” because “the price of Boxed Beef has gone up” even while cattle prices were stable or falling.
The move comes after both feeder and calf markets continue to see lower prices in a market that many say is fundamentally sound but overtly impacted by national policies being proposed by the Trump administration.
From increasing the beef import quota at a lower tariff rate on Argentinian beef imports to reducing tariffs on Brazilian beef imports, to signals of opening the U.S./Mexican border for live cattle trade amid concerns of the New World screwworm fly infestation in that country, the cattle complex is on edge, reflected in a roller-coaster market that is now affecting ranchers selling fall calves – reports of price drops as much as $100cwt are becoming common.
Despite the technical chaos over the last 18 days, industry experts point to solid fundamentals that remain in place. In addition, there are no significant signs of herd-retention. Consumer demand remains high. While the market has lost significant ground in the last 18 days, prices are still at historic highs.
Concentration in the meat packing business has long been a concern for ranchers, farmers and politicians on both sides of the aisle since the mid 1980’s. At that time, the top four beef packers controlled 36% of the U.S. beef supply. They now control 80-85%.
There are four major meat packing companies in the United States. The largest, JBS, is headquartered in Brazil.
JBS made a $5 million donation to Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, the single largest contribution to the event. Within two days of Trump installing a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner (SEC) chair, JBS’ long-stalled bid for a U.S. listing on the New York Stock Exchange was approved and the company began trading after more than a decade of being turned away by the SEC previously.
During his first term, Trump canceled a rule under the Obama administration that defined unfair practices in livestock markets and would have made it easier for ranchers to take on meatpackers over pricing and allegations of anti-competitive practices. In his second term, Trump canceled a similar Biden-era rule aimed at increasing enforcement against anticompetitive practices in the meatpacking industry.
As part of Trumps deregulatory blitz, some inspection tasks are now delegated to company employees instead of USDA inspectors that some argue puts more and more autonomy and control in the hands of big meatpackers.