President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Friday allowing farmers and ranchers to slaughter their own livestock and process their own food, a measure meant to lower beef prices ahead of the midterm elections in November.
Trump said during the Oval Office signing ceremony that the Department of Agriculture will create “a program where small and medium-sized and large ranchers can sell their products directly to consumers,” avoiding the four large meatpacking corporations.
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“My administration has taken historic action to help our nation’s great cattle ranchers and deliver American meat processing to the highest standard,” Trump said. “And any there will be no standard higher in the world, and sold at the lowest prices directly to the consumer.”
The first executive order Trump signed on Friday allows ranchers to slaughter their own livestock and expands the interstate market for local beef producers. The second executive order requires country of origin labeling across foreign beef products.
Expanding the supply of beef by circumventing the four largest meatpacking corporations will, in theory, put downward pressure on prices at grocery stores, helping food affordability.
The move is also a victory for the Make America Healthy Again movement and its emphasis on high-protein diets, with beef at the center of the new food pyramid championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
Rollins said during the signing that the United States has lost 600,000 ranchers since 1980, but the Trump administration is investing in rebuilding the American cattle herd.
“We cannot continue freedom in America without those who feed us and fuel us,” Rollins said. “And so today, the signal to our ranchers, the signal to rural America, but really the signal to the world is that American ranching and American farmers are back.”
Trump referred to the four meatpacking corporations — Tyson Foods, JBS USA, Cargill, and National Beef Packing Co. — as a monopoly and said “they cost our ranchers a lot of money and they cost the public a lot of money and grief.”
The president also said jokingly he will need security protection for disrupting the industry.
“They’re not going to be happy when they hear this,” Trump said. “I don’t know who they are, but they’re going to be coming at me at different angles.”
Trump said USDA will streamline health regulations for ranchers processing their own meats and selling them across state lines, adding that the agency will “have very strong safety inspections.”
But he praised ranchers for being able to process their meat products more efficiently and in a cleaner way than industrial processors.
“You do it cleaner than these four monopolies, two of which are based in Brazil,” Trump said. “So it’s like ridiculous.”
On top of loosening meat processing requirements, Trump’s executive order also directs the secretary of the interior to authorize ranchers to protect rural communities and cattle herds from Mexican gray wolves and other predatory species that endanger livestock.
Mexican gray wolves are on the endangered species list, but attacks from protected wolf species can cost ranchers hundreds of heads of cattle and other livestock. The executive order directs the interior and agriculture secretaries to work together in developing new guidance on downlisting the Mexican gray wolf on the endangered species list to protect cattle herds.
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Trump said ranchers were a key voting bloc that secured his reelection victory in 2024.
“Ranchers and farmers have always been a No. 1 priority to me,” Trump said. “They like me and I like them. Based on the results in the election, they like me a lot, and I like them a lot.”
