"Think of the cattle auctioneer's chant as a prayer. To the untrained ear, it's nonsense, a stream of words compressed beyond recognition. If you know what to listen for, phrases emerge from the hum and buzz: Will you go four? Will you give five? The job of the auctioneer is to whip bidders into a frenzy, selling cows, heifers, bulls, and steers at the highest price possible through the power of constant supplication."
"Until recently, those prayers had been answered. Feeder-cattle futures traded up through the fall, driven in part by President Donald Trump's tariffs on foreign-food imports. Beef prices reached new highs this year too. Ground-beef is up more than 50 percent compared with 2020 (and some restaurants have adjusted their menus accordingly); next year, they could be 60 percent higher than they were this September."
"But growing concerns about inflation and affordability seem to have forced Trump to reconsider his trade-war strategy: Ahead of Thanksgiving, he announced that he was rolling back tariffs on beef. Prices at grocery stores haven't budged, and ranchers, whose fortunes rose with those tariffs, are now suddenly at odds with a president who was once their champion. The prices of cattle (the animals themselves) and beef (the processed meat on grocery-store shelves) have recently moved in tandem, but that's not always the case."
An auctioneer's rapid chant drives bidders to pay more for cattle through persistent calls. Tariffs on foreign-food imports pushed feeder-cattle futures and beef prices higher, with ground beef more than 50 percent above 2020 levels and projected to rise further. Growing inflation and affordability concerns prompted a rollback of beef tariffs ahead of Thanksgiving, yet grocery-store prices have not fallen. Ranchers who benefited from the tariffs now find themselves at odds with the president. Cattle and retail-beef prices have recently moved together but can diverge because of complex supply chains: producers sell to feedlots and packers before beef reaches retailers.
Read at The Atlantic
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