Nebraska lawmakers and beef producers are speaking out against the Trump administration’s recent decision to import an additional 80,000 tons of lean beef from Argentina.
In a statement, 3rd District Republican Congressman Adrian Smith argued that the policy does little to help a Nebraska industry that’s surging after a period of stagnation.
“While the United States holds historic low-inventory in cattle herds,” the statement reads, “we must focus on policies that strengthen the market and create long-term certainty for the entire supply chain."
Ranchers across the U.S. have culled their herds in recent years due to drought and fire, resulting in the lowest beef cattle numbers in about 75 years.
Closer to home, Mark McHargue, president of the Nebraska Farm Bureau, said he’s seen first hand the recent recovery of Nebraska’s beef industry, and thinks overregulation at the federal level wouldn't be helpful for growth.
“The fact that the beef sector is doing well is a very significant plus for Nebraska for our economy,” McHargue said. “So I think we have to be careful that we don't do anything at the federal level to substantially change that for our producers.”
Republican Sen. Deb Fischer agreed. In a statement last week, she criticized the order, saying, “Instead of imports that sideline American ranchers, we should be focused on solutions that cut red tape, lower production costs, and support growing our cattle herd.”
Beef is currently driving the state’s economy, despite overall herd numbers that have declined by 20% since 2019. Numbers for Nebraska cattle are at their lowest since 1960.
The Trump administration said that additional imports of Argentine beef will lower prices for consumers, but McHargue said that wouldn’t necessarily be the case.
“It doesn’t seem like higher beef prices alone are stemming demand," he said. "It seems like the consumer is willing to pay the current price. They haven’t backed off, they haven’t switched to another form of protein.”
Part of the increased demand for beef nationwide comes from the recent revision of the nation’s food pyramid, which places extra emphasis on red meat.
Prices have also spiked due to the appearance of the new world screwworm in Mexican cattle. McHargue said that means imports from Mexico are virtually nonexistent currently.
“There's a lot of cattle, hundreds of thousands of cattle, that we had been receiving but, just because of that one issue, are not coming across," he said. "And so if we can fix that, that's going to be immediate access to a lot more cattle that we just currently don't have access to.”
The USDA estimates Mexican cattle imports have declined by about 795,000 head between 2024 and 2025 due to the screwworm. To help regain those cattle imports, the USDA has built a facility in Texas to combat the screwworm in Mexico, and help prevent it from reaching herds in the United States.
McHargue, a pork producer himself, said the second Trump administration hasn’t been handling agricultural issues the way he’d hoped, but he said that hasn’t been enough to shake confidence in the president.
“We knew, coming into this second term, where he's probably going to be on trade and tariffs, which quite frankly, he's probably not handling trade like we would," he said. "We find ourselves in these conversations occasionally when we're kind of like, okay, well, we like part of it. We're not sure about this part of it, but that's the case probably with any administration.”
The first round of Argentine beef is expected to enter the U.S. market Friday, where it will be blended with U.S. products for ground beef and hamburger.