Cattle ranchers bullish about Trump's new tariffs

Some cattle ranchers in the U.S. are bullish about President Donald Trump’s newest tariffs.

Last week, the Trump administration announced a baseline levy of 10% on goods imported from foreign countries and "individualized reciprocal higher" tariffs on certain nations.

Alan Adams, a long-time cattle farmer in Illinois, told FOX Business correspondent Kelly Saberi on Monday that he was "really happy when the president mentioned last week that beef was one of the things that he wanted to make sure we got a chance to sell into other countries."  

While detailing the new tariffs last week, Trump at one point called out Australia, saying the country "won’t take any of our beef. They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers, and you know what? I don’t blame them, but we’re doing the same thing right now." He also said imports of Australian beef to the U.S. amounted to several billion dollars last year. 

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) said in an April 2 statement that multiple countries "impose tariff and non-tariff trade barriers on American beef that inhibit opportunities to export our high-quality product" such as Australia, Vietnam, Thailand and the European Union.

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Ethan Lane, the senior vice president of government affairs at the NCBA, said Trump was "taking action to address numerous trade barriers that prevent consumers overseas from enjoying high-quality, wholesome American beef" with the new tariffs.

"We’ve struggled with this for my whole career in the cattle business, so we were really happy when the president mentioned last week that beef was one of the things that he wanted to make sure that we got a chance to sell into other countries," Adams told Saberi.

"We’re happy to have other countries sell here if they can meet our standards in terms of health standards, but we’d like the same chance to sell into those countries," he continued. "And so we’re hoping that the president will be successful." 

Access to new overseas markets would give his business the opportunity to grow, according to the farmer.

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"Well, certainly, if we can get more market and more market share and higher prices, then we’ll start expanding our herd and trying to fill that need," Adams said. 

The U.S. exported 1.29 million metric tons of beef and beef products worth $10.45 billion to other countries last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). 

In 2024, South Korea, Japan, China, Mexico and Canada were among the top markets, receiving $2.22 billion, $1.87 billion, $1.58 billion, $1.35 billion and $896.12 million of American beef products, respectively, USDA data showed. 

R-CALF USA, another trade association, said last week the new tariffs will "help put an end to the globalists’ practice of using cheaper imports to reduce demand for domestic cattle and sheep, which causes domestic farms and ranchers to fail." 

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The cattle and sheep producer association has advocated for the addition of a "tariff-rate quota system" to curb beef and lamb imports on top of Trump’s sweeping tariffs. 

Trump said last week that the new tariffs were "one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history," calling it the U.S.’ "declaration of economic independence."