A small group of White House officials is exploring whether to cut back President Donald Trump’s decision to increase foreign beef imports, as GOP panic rises ahead of the midterms.
The proposal to reduce the amount of imports is being discussed within the Domestic Policy Council headed by Vince Haley, a longtime Trump speechwriter and former campaign official, and a few other officials at the White House, according to two people with direct knowledge of the conversations, who were granted anonymity to share private details.
Trump officials are unsure if anything will come of the talks. The two people said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative disagrees with cutting back the imports, since it aims to lower high consumer beef prices in the short term and since USTR helped implement the move.
But their conversations about partly rolling back the beef policy — which Trump instituted in August — is a clear sign the White House is trying to stem the alarm from battleground and farm-state Republicans as high prices and Trump’s tariffs roil their election campaigns. The White House is also preparing a plan on diesel exports, likely with exemptions, amid sky-high prices from the Iran war.
The White House and USTR, in statements after this article published, denied that there was any official action on the table.
“There’s no pending policy change to ‘disagree’ with,” a USTR official said. “The administration is focused on the interest of American ranchers and consumers. All agencies are supporting the President in these goals.”
“The White House is not considering such action. As the President directed in his executive order, the USDA and USTR continue to monitor beef imports to ensure that savings are being passed onto consumers,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.
Earlier this week, Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP Senate nominee, took the extraordinary step of publicly breaking with Trump, saying gas prices were too high because of the Iran war and that farmers in her state are suffering. Michigan Senate GOP nominee Mike Rogers and other vulnerable House and Senate Republicans have made similar breaks.
Farm-state lawmakers in Iowa and beyond have publicly called for the White House to provide some relief from the beef import executive action in particular, because of its impact on farmers and ranchers.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the rest of the Iowa delegation and other senior farm-state lawmakers have all pressed the administration to change course — to no avail.
Trump did sign an executive order of rancher-friendly policies as a way to address the initial backlash. But U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer made clear to a group of House Republicans in a closed-door briefing earlier this month that Trump’s executive action to import 300,000 metric tons of beef without certain tariffs and at discounted prices would go forward as planned, as POLITICO first reported.