President Donald Trump’s proposal to buy Argentinian beef as a way to help lower U.S. beef prices has resulted in backlash from American cattle producers. Ben Weinheimer, president and CEO of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, said his organization is trying to take a more measured response.
“Argentina, itself, consumes 75 percent of what they produce. They export 25 percent of it, and the amount that they export to us is relatively insignificant. It’s around 2.1 percent of all of our beef imports, and even if we swept all of that entire 20 percent that they currently export out of Argentina, that would move that 2.1 percent of our beef imports from Argentina up to 2.5 percent, so it’s relatively small.”
He said politics can make it seem like a bigger issue than it actually is.
“Politically, right? The messaging around it can be much more substantial than the actual numbers, the surrounding metrics, but yet, I think it’s one where we’ve been a little bit cautious and made sure we haven’t overreacted to those comments, and we really want to continue to stand by the Trump administration and Secretary Rollins. They’ve done a lot of great things for agriculture, and we expect to see that from them going forward, and even though some of their policy decisions may have some short-term implications, we’ll continue to be hopeful and supportive of them.”
Looking ahead to 2026, it looks like another strong year in the cattle business.
“It does. As you heard in Randy Blach’s (from CattleFax) comments, there are a lot of opportunities here for us in the year ahead across all the cattle sectors, from the cow-calf producers, stocker operators, and the feed yards, and it’s been needed. It’s been helpful to kind of shore up some of these balance sheets, and it does take a lot of resources, given where prices are at today, to be able to stay in the cattle business and be invested. That looks to be for us, at least, a very positive here as far as profit opportunities going into 2026.”