Lawmakers who represent cattle ranchers understand that they exist to raise prices.
Over the weekend, many Republican lawmakers found the one issue on which they could break with President Trump: beef taxes.
Trump announced on Friday that he would raise the longstanding quota for beef to enter the country under a reduced tariff rate. Previously, only 697,000 metric tons of beef could be imported from countries other than Mexico and Canada under a modest duty of 4.4 cents per kilogram. The administration is allowing 300,000 more metric tons under this quota for three months — coincidentally through the midterms. Above the quota, beef imports are subject to a 26.4 percent tariff.
If the president were capable of embarrassment, he might be bashful about cutting tariffs to bring down costs for American consumers. (What does hiking tariffs do, then?) Regardless, he is recognizing what I wrote months ago: Beef tariffs exist to increase beef prices.
Republicans from ranching-heavy states also recognize this. Because every price is someone else’s income, cattle producers have greatly benefited from the higher beef prices that are angering grocery shoppers. Members of Congress who represent those ranchers don’t want those prices to fall because of foreign competition.
Senator Deb Fischer (R., Neb.) says she is “extremely disappointed by this decision from the White House. We all want lower grocery prices, but as I’ve said for months, we cannot do it at the expense of American producers.” Translation: She would like beef prices to be low and high simultaneously.
Senator Tim Sheehy (R., Mont.) says he has “advised President Trump against this course of action for a year because American ranchers have been struggling against the packer monopoly for decades, and this will further harm them — most of whom are MAGA Republicans.” Well, if they’re MAGA Republicans . . .
(For the record, meatpackers are evidently not to blame for higher beef prices, since they are struggling even more than consumers.)
Even Representative Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), usually considered a libertarian if not a kook, thinks that reducing beef tariffs is “worse than socialism!” Yes, allowing voluntary transactions at a lower tax rate is quite the nefarious plot.
There are many more quotes like these from farm-state Republicans. They are willing to make a fuss about reducing expensive tariffs, but not about the president launching a fresh trade war against Canada for no reason that will raise the prices of many more goods.
Protectionism is so politically seductive — and so vehemently defended once implemented — because its benefits are highly concentrated and its costs, though they are often far greater, are diffuse. Lower beef prices may benefit every American a little bit, but they would more visibly hurt the small percentage of Americans who raise cattle. Forced to choose between them, politicians will usually serve the squeakiest wheel. That becomes a political problem, however, when a thousand different price-increasing policies add up, making the public inclined to vote on affordability writ large.