For President Donald Trump, it was a brief musing to reporters on Air Force One about his plans to import beef from Argentina. For dozens of farm-state Republicans who have held their tongues as key Trump policies battered their constituents, it was the final straw.
GOP lawmakers in cattle-producing states unleashed a flurry of calls over the following days to the White House and Agriculture Department. A small group of Republican senators, including retiring Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, cornered USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins in a private meeting less than 48 hours after the Oct. 19 comment.
This could not go on, they argued.
So far, the burst of objections has not generated a U-turn from the administration, which is going ahead with a beef import plan that Trump officials argue will both lower steak and hamburger prices for American consumers and bolster relations with a key Trump ally, Argentinian President Javier Milei.
But it has exposed the limits of GOP lawmakers’ tolerance for policies that have especially tested states heavy on agriculture. Some of the president’s staunchest Hill allies watched for months as Trump’s tariffs devastated farmers. More recently, they begged his deputies to reopen key farm offices during the shutdown. Then came the beef beef, with one GOP senator granted anonymity to speak candidly calling it a “a betrayal of America First principles.”
Even in the Trump-loyal House, key Republicans are pushing back.
Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), and Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), along with 11 other House Republicans, warned against Trump’s beef move, according to a letter sent Tuesday to Rollins and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that was obtained exclusively by POLITICO.
“We believe strongly that the path to lower prices and stronger competition lies in continued investment at home … rather than policies that advantage foreign competitors,” they wrote.
The frustrations are also playing out on the Senate floor this week on a series of votes to undo some of Trump’s global tariffs. On Tuesday, five GOP senators joined Democrats to reverse 50 percent tariffs on Brazil; four Republicans voted Wednesday to cancel tariffs on Canada. While the votes are largely symbolic — House Republicans have preempted any challenges to Trump tariffs until February — the message was sent.
“Brazil had a trade surplus and the impetus behind it appears to be a disagreement with a judicial proceeding,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said, referring to Trump’s displeasure with the prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. “I just don’t think that’s a strong basis for using the trade lever.”
Caught in the middle of the farm-state fury is Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has long warned about the fallout of broad-based tariffs but has defended Trump’s trade prerogatives over the past nine months.
Trump’s trade wars, during his first term and this year, have wreaked havoc in Thune’s home state of South Dakota, where agricultural exports are a major economic driver. Thune has said he’s not a big fan of the levies. This week, Thune told reporters he thought Trump’s tariff policy “is a work in progress” and declined to predict how many Republicans might break ranks on the latest disapproval votes.
“My views on tariffs are probably slightly different than some of my colleagues,” Thune said, adding, “But I’m always willing to give the president and his team the opportunity — a chance — to get good deals, and hopefully that’s the case.”
Another reason farm-staters’ frustrations are coming to a head: Trump is meeting this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with high hopes for a trade breakthrough among Republican lawmakers. And next week, the Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments in a high-stakes challenge to Trump’s emergency tariff powers next week, and GOP leaders believe they need to give Republicans room to air their grievances beforehand.
“We want a level playing field. We want better terms for our exporters,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said, who added that he continues to be willing to give Trump “time” to strike badly needed trade deals.
Others are convinced the Supreme Court will step in and strike down at least some of Trump’s sweeping tariffs. “Emergencies are like war, famine [and] tornadoes,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the most vocal opponent of Trump’s tariffs in the Senate. “Not liking someone’s tariffs is not an emergency. It’s an abuse of the emergency power and it’s Congress abdicating their traditional role in taxes.”
But many are simply keeping their powder dry — and their reservations quiet — as they navigate their free-trade principles and loyalty to Trump.
“Where we are right now is, the president has invoked what he says are his emergency powers to implement tariffs unilaterally, and that has been challenged, and the Supreme Court is going to rule on it,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said.
Asked if had a view of how sweeping the current tariffs should be, Kennedy replied, “I don’t have anything for you on that.”
Amid the Argentinian beef uproar, Trump has at times shown little sympathy for ranchers and other agricultural producers.
“The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% Tariff on Brazil,” he wrote in a Truth Social post last week, adding that they “have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”
That comment, and Trump officials’ confirmation that he was seeking to import four times the normal amount of beef from Argentina, set off a new wave of furor on Capitol Hill. And with Trump jetting off for a week of high-profile meetings with Asian leaders, it fell to Vice President JD Vance to absorb the frustration inside a closed-door lunch on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
“There was almost universal concern,” said one GOP senator granted anonymity to describe the private meeting, describing the room as senator after senator pressed Vance.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), a Trump ally whose family raises cattle, pushed back forcefully.
She rattled off a list of facts inside the GOP lunch that essentially argued the Trump administration was blaming the wrong party for high beef prices. Pointing out that wholesale cattle prices for ranchers are down while processed beef prices are up, she suggested the country’s large and often politically powerful meatpacking companies as the reason — a sector that has been subject to a long-running and bitter internal GOP fight on Capitol Hill.
“Ranchers,” Hyde-Smith told Vance, “are not the problem.”
Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.