Trump digs in as White House ignores escalating farmer fury

President Donald Trump gambled that importing more beef—at U.S. ranchers’ expense — would lower prices enough to mitigate the political hit from the ranching industry.

That bet, reports Politico, did not deliver.

“There’s a lot of frustration and anger,” said Glenn Brunkow, the president of the nonpartisan Kansas Farm Bureau and a fifth-generation farmer and stockman in deep-red Pottawatomie County.

It turned out that beef prices have barely budged, U.S. ranchers — a key constituent of the Trump coalition — remain furious, and vulnerable Republicans in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Texas are fighting for their lives to convince rural voters to turn out in November as farmers “confront economic headwinds fueled by the president’s policies.”

Brunkow told Politico that Trump’s August proclamation to temporarily allow cheaper beef imports from countries like Brazil knocked $200 to $400 off the $2k value of an American farmer’s cow, just to compete on the same market.

“We knew it wouldn’t have much of an effect on the hamburger price in the store. But the markets took that news, and it really knocked the price we get for our cattle down,” Brunkow said.

But then came the skyrocketing diesel prices resulting from Trump’s entirely voluntary war with Iran and the resulting bottleneck of processed Middle East fuel.

“[That] hit us with $6 diesel,” said Brunkow. “This has been pretty, pretty tough to swallow.”

Politico reports Republicans from top beef-producing states, as well as agriculture industry representatives and administration officials (including Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins) all warned Trump that his beef import plan would “hurt ranchers and imperil Republican candidates.” But Trump rolled on with his policy.

Now Trump's stubbornness is decimating Trump’s farming coalition as declining profits hollow out the reliable part of the Republican base.

“It wasn’t worth the headache and what it did to the market,” ranted Jenna Stanton, federal policy director at Western Skies Strategies. “It’s doing exactly what we thought it was going to do, which was nothing.”

Despite this, Trump isn’t backing down, reports White House sources.

“The White House isn’t currently planning to scale back or end the proclamation early, allowing it to expire as intended in November, according to two people familiar with the plans who were granted anonymity to discuss them,” reports Politico.

In many cases, the damage to American farmers is already done, said sources.

“I just think it’s had limited impact on consumer behavior, limited impact on family budgets. And it had a … significant negative impact on producers,” said a person close to the administration.