President Donald Trump met with Republican senators Tuesday to discuss the government shutdown, but they pivoted to another matter: the president’s hopes to import beef from Argentina.
It quickly turned into a rare instance of Republicans clashing with the president publicly — a high-steaks meeting, indeed.
“If you flood the market, that hurts beef producers badly,” Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, a cattle rancher, said during a video filmed by his staff in his office after the meeting Tuesday, which he invited NOTUS to watch him record when asked about beef. (No questions, Risch instructed. Just listening.)
Risch said he and a “very sizable number of senators” sat down with Trump at the White House to share their fears about how the plan could hurt American farmers.
“Hopefully we’ve given him some thought as he goes forward and makes a decision on this,” he said.
The panic among Republicans followed Trump’s comments earlier this week, in which he said importing Argentinian beef could be one way to both help a struggling ally and to assist consumers.
“The Trump administration remains committed to addressing the needs and concerns of American cattle producers and safeguarding their interests at home and abroad,” said a White House spokesperson in a statement to NOTUS.
Still, Republican senators didn’t see it that way.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has criticized Trump’s tariffs on imports, among other administration policies, pointed out the dissonance of the tariff-heavy Trump administration suddenly boosting an imported product.
“It seems to go against the administration, who says, on the one hand, ‘We’ve got to keep out foreign goods — oh, except for Argentinian beef.’”
Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told NOTUS the senators emphasized to the president that it was best to let the market determine prices freely instead of intervening to try to bring down costs for consumers.
“Our cattle ranchers have been hurting for 10 years with low prices, and now we have good prices,” Cramer said. “Let the free market work. That’s kind of the whole message, and he heard it from several members. And I think he’s listening.”
The debate is also playing out as the United States is intervening to prop up Argentina’s currency, a move Cramer said he can comprehend more so than importing beef.
“I certainly understand the benefit to the United States of Argentina having a stronger peso, so they can buy more of our stuff,” Cramer told NOTUS.
That still strikes Cramer, in some way, as “America First — maybe.”
But buying beef? “America First — definitely not.”
According to Department of Agriculture data, the top cattle-producing states are Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, California and Oklahoma. Four of those reliably vote Republican, meaning Trump’s beef-import plan could hit hardest in the heart of his party’s base.
Others Republican senators made clear they share skepticism of Trump’s beef plan.
“I’m very concerned about it,” Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, another cattle rancher, told NOTUS. She was one of the first members of Congress to raise the issue publicly, warning in a statement Monday that importing Argentinian beef “isn’t the way” to lower prices and that “government intervention … will hurt our cattle ranchers.”
More of Trump’s usual allies voiced the same concern.
“I’m not a fan of importing beef from Argentina,” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said.
Others said cattle ranchers represent the American ideal.
“That’s undercutting our ‘Made in America’ cattle,” Sen. Steve Daines of Montana said. “There’s nothing more America than the cowboys and cow-calf operations they support.”
The rare moment of opposition from Republican lawmakers is striking. But whether they actually convince Trump to reverse course is another question.
At the very least, “they’re definitely hearing our concerns,” Daines said of the White House.
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Editor’s Note: This story was updated with additional reporting.