Farm & Food File: And you thought ‘business’ people knew economics

Paradox seems to be the guiding principle of today’s food policies. For example, the administration is arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that the nation’s longstanding trade deficit is a national “emergency” that empowers the president to impose — then dispose, impose and re-impose — tariffs.

At the same time, its U.S. Department of Agriculture argues it is unable to use a $5-billion contingency fund to pay Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to over 40 million Americans after Nov. 1 because there is “no national emergency.”

Then there’s this riddle inside that paradox: How can the White House quickly find $13 billion for American farmers to pay for its tariff fight, but can’t find a single cent for 42 million American SNAP dependents to feed them through a political fight?

The answer is that neither amount — $13 billion ticketed to farmers or the stiffing of SNAP recipients — is about money.

It’s about politics and most solutions nowadays arrive as winners or losers and rarely as what’s right.

Here’s another paradox at play between the political world of the White House and real world markets farmers and ranchers face everyday.

On Oct. 22, the president noted that “America’s ranchers should lower cattle prices to help ease the cost of beef at supermarkets and restaurants,” according to the New York Times.

The president didn’t explain how ranchers could help lower meat prices given they have no day-to-day role in the price-setting work of the global beef supply chain.

That’s not a mystery; it’s Econ 100, a class the president may have missed while an economics student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

That shortfall, however, didn’t keep the president from taking credit for today’s profitable cattle prices that he now paradoxically claims are too high.

“If it weren’t for me,” he posted on social media crediting his tariff regime, “they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — Terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that.”

It would be even better if he, the nation’s self-proclaimed chief financial officer, understood that his take on today’s cattle market and global trade is dead wrong. For starters:

• Most ranchers sell calves, not market-ready “finished” cattle, so “lowering” prices for their calves would have no impact on meat prices whatsoever.

• Today’s high cattle prices have been fueled by the ever-shrinking U.S cattle herd, the smallest in 70 years; not tariffs. It’s the cattle cycle, not geopolitics.

• Imports, like tariffs, have been a part of the U.S. beef sector for decades. In 2024, the United States imported 1.96 million metric tons of beef, with the three largest exporters to the United States being Canada, 645,000 million metric tons; Australia, 387,000 million metric tons; and Mexico, 225,000 million metric tons.

• USDA data shows U.S. beef imports for the first 42 weeks of 2025 at 7% over last year, another paradox to the president’s assertion that its import-stifling tariffs are responsible for today’s high cattle prices.

Brewing right now, however, is another ag trade fight. On Oct. 26, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that China will make “substantial” U.S. soy purchases. On Oct. 29, it did just that, buying a modest 180,000 metric tons, its first since May.

That “deal,” however, reported Reuters, came just days after the “U.S. Trade Representative’s office … launched a new tariff investigation into China’s ‘apparent failure to comply’ with the ‘Phase One’ trade deal signed with the White House” in 2020 to end his first U.S.-China trade war.

So, add more policy paradox to the trade maze that U.S. farmers and ranchers — and, ultimately, taxpayers — now face.