President Donald Trump suggested on Sunday that the United States could make a deal with Argentina to import the country’s beef to bring down meat prices.
Last week, the president first floated such an agreement during remarks in the Oval Office.
“We did something, we worked our magic,” Trump said at the time, adding that he “thinks we have a deal” that will bring prices down “pretty soon,” although he declined to elaborate on details.
Days later, Trump revealed more information.
“We would buy some beef from Argentina,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening. “If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down.”
The administration’s plan responds to a sharp rise in beef prices in the U.S., largely due to supply threatened by nationwide droughts affecting vital ranching areas, which have negatively affected cattle inventories. Flesh-eating pest and screwworm outbreaks have also affected imports from Mexico, with the combination of factors spiking beef prices by about 13% over the past year, according to data released in August from the Labor Department.
The development also comes days after the Trump administration announced plans to send $20 billion in a currency swap to Argentine President Javier Milei to stabilize his country’s collapsing peso. The U.S. is also developing a plan to funnel $20 billion in private sector funding to Argentina, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last Wednesday.
The move prompted backlash from some Republicans, as well as derision from Democrats, who said the president was violating his “America First” plan.
“Americans are getting decimated with high cost of living and skyrocketing insurance costs. Many of them have zero savings and some are maxing out credit cards to survive,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wrote in a post to X. “Tell me how it’s America First to bailout a foreign country with $20 or even $40 BILLION taxpayer dollars.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), along with several Democratic colleagues, introduced a bill seeking to block Trump from intervening in Argentina.
“Trump promised ‘America First,’ but he’s putting himself and his billionaire buddies first and sticking Americans with the bill,” she said.
Steve Kamin, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told Newsweek that in a sense, the currency “swap line could be construed as helping the U.S. by helping other countries, an idea that America First seems to reject.”
However, he added that, if support for Milei was part of a “prudent, systematic, thoughtful, and apolitical program” to promote America’s geopolitical and economic aims, “it would be a plus for the U.S., regardless of whether it failed some MAGA litmus test.”
The Trump administration has defended the swap line, painting Milei’s government as a “beacon” of democracy that is “working against history” to revitalize its economy on a continent grappling with “failed economic models.” When Milei came into power in December 2023, the country’s debt exceeded $400 billion, leading the new Argentine leader to embark on a series of reforms that sought to overhaul socialist policies with a free-market agenda.
“This trope that we’re helping out wealthy Americans with interest down there couldn’t be more false,” Bessent told CNBC earlier this month.
“What we’re doing is maintaining a U.S. strategic interest in the Western Hemisphere,” he added. “’America First’ doesn’t mean America alone.”
When pressed on Sunday on concerns that his plan to buy beef from Argentina might hurt U.S. producers, Trump argued it was warranted to bring down prices.
“If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down because our groceries are down, our energy prices are down. I think we’re going to have $2 gasoline pretty soon — we’re getting close — and everything’s down. The one thing that’s kept up is beef,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Trump added that he viewed the idea favorably because it could help Argentina “survive in a free world.” He suggested that anything to cement Argentina’s reforms under Milei could help turn the region away from the socialism of Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, and other South American countries, and toward a better future.
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“If you take a look now, South America is turning. Those South American countries are starting to turn very much toward us. They’re getting away from socialism, and you can go right down the pack. But they are starting to turn. It’s pretty amazing,” Trump said.
“[Argentina] has no money. They have no anything. They’re fighting so hard to survive,” he added. “And if we buy some beef — I’m not talking about that much — from Argentina, it would help Argentina, which we consider a very good country, a very good ally.”
