A shopper examines a package of meat in a grocery store for freshness on Jan. 17, 2012.
President Donald Trump and the Republican Party do not have much to brag about to voters when it comes to making life more affordable, so, according to a report from The Hill, they are "unleashing the lawyers on the food business" in a gamble to bring down soaring prices for a major American diet staple: beef.
Writing for the outlet on Tuesday morning, reporter Chris Stirewalt noted that beef prices are currently four times as high as they were in the spring of 2000. Accounting for inflation rates over the last 26 years, he explained, "it’s really only about 30 cents per pound more than it was back then," but despite that fact, beef's place in American culture gives even modest price fluctuations a major impact.
"But for a product that is the instantiation of the idea of easily accessible American affluence, high beef prices tend to make people feel poorer than they are," Stirewalt wrote. "If you’re passing on T-bones in favor of chicken thighs for Friday evening’s cookout, it doesn’t feel like bargain shopping as much as it does going without."
Beef prices rose about 20 percent in Trump's first year back in office, after he was reelected, specifically, by voters looking to see everyday costs come down. The past year also saw another surge in egg prices, "the symbol of Biden-era food inflation," increasing the strain on voters' grocery bills.
"There are many reasons beef costs so much. Outbreaks of contagious diseases culled herds, while droughts reduced cattle yields and drove up feed costs," Stirewalt explained. "Experts estimate it will take two years for domestic herds to fully rebound. Then there are import tariffs on foreign beef and an immigration crackdown that eliminated big parts of the beef processing workforce. Now there’s the disruption to fertilizer markets through the Strait of Hormuz."
Looking to tackle the problem in the hopes of finding a much-needed midterm talking point, "The Trump Justice Department announced Monday that it was going after America’s beef producers for that favorite of vulnerable incumbents: price gouging." This tactic, once deployed by President Joe Biden in 2024 as well, runs counter to the typical conservative ethos that "federal market interventions... worsen, not fix, high costs," but nevertheless, Republicans are now ready to "litigate their way to lower prices."
"The president initially blamed 'foreign meat packing cartels' when he announced the crackdown last fall, but with prices still rising, the big American producers, Tyson and Cargill, are going to get pinched, too," Stirewalt wrote. "One assumes it will be about as effective as the Biden effort or the similar one from Trump’s first term, but it’s something to tell voters contemplating another package of chicken thighs thawing on the counter."