Ranchers in battleground states are furious about diesel prices and beef imports. According to a new report published on Thursday by the conservative newspaper the Washington Examiner, not only has the situation made said ranchers cursing mad toward President Donald Trump, but it could “cost Republicans a Senate seat in Kansas.”
“He doesn’t know what s—— is coming out of his mouth,” one particularly blunt farmer told the Examiner when asked about Trump’s performance. As the paper explains, “High diesel prices, expensive feed, pickups that cost almost as much as a house, and escalating land prices are putting the squeeze on the state’s cattle industry. Kansas produces almost a quarter of the nation’s beef and the issue has moved to the center of a tight Senate race, heaping pressure on the Republican candidate, Sen. Roger Marshall. And then there was the decision by President Donald Trump to lift tariffs and allow in hundreds of thousands of tons of ground beef from Central and South America.”
“I’m disappointed in Trump and the cattlemen’s association for not raising cane,” said 82-year-old rancher Chuck Madron. “They’re letting cattle in from Uruguay. They’re letting beef in from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil. What about us ranchers? Diesel is over $6.”
The high cost of diesel is being felt by everyone, stockyard owner Tylen Layton told the Examiner, saying it is driving down the prices of cattle at auction. His numbers show that the cost of moving an animal has risen by $1.50 per mile. “It just changed the whole dynamics of everything,” he explained. “You know, people can’t afford to give as much for the cattle now because they’re trying to afford the trucking to get them to their final destinations.” That translates to a reduction of $40 to $60 per 100 pounds, or about $300 to $600 less per head.
What’s more, writes the Examiner, “Trump’s move to allow in cheap exports has exasperated locals, who see it helping meat processors, or packers, or McDonald’s, but not shoppers or ranchers.” As Layton explained, “The problem is that we haven’t done the first thing to make beef cheaper for the Wichita, Kansas, housewife or the New York City housewife. They’re hurting us, making it cheap for the packers, but the packers aren’t going to bring their prices down when they sell it to the retailers.” According to the Examiner, ranchers are also concerned about an ICE crackdown on meatpacking plants in the state. As the paper explains, “The fear is that processing will grind to a halt if staff — mostly immigrants, some legal, some undocumented — stay home. The result is an outpouring of frustration with the Trump administration, which people see as too close to voters on the coasts and too far from beef country.”
As a result, “Democrats see an opening in a state that has not let them have a look in since the 1930s. Their challenger, Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, took a 2-point lead over Marshall in a recent Emerson College/Nexstar poll.” In a recent debate, Hamilton blasted “trade wars, which actually in the last Trump administration cost beef farm beef ranchers in Kansas a billion dollars in trade that went to Brazil and Argentina.” He also decried the “diminishing of the workforce and arresting the workforce,” asserting that it was “making it harder for people to work in the livestock industry,” adding, “This is not okay.”
For his part, Marshall attempted to defend the tariffs, though he later gave a nod to political reality, toning down his once full-throated endorsement for immigration enforcement to signal a degree of disquiet. “When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement,” Marshall posted. “Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.”
“That leaves Kansas ranchers, like farmers across the country, dealing with crippling diesel prices,” writes the Examiner. “Jim Moore, a fourth-generation rancher, said it costs him $2,000 now to fill up his three tractors. A president who made much of his support from the farming community, he said, had forgotten his friends when they needed him.”
