Please Love Someone Else

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Trump says he “loves” America’s ranchers—right before shipping in cheaper Argentine beef. Nothing says America First like outsourcing your steak and stabbing your base with a ribeye.

Photo by Bailey Alexander on Unsplash

There’s a moment, somewhere between narcissism and national policy, where Donald Trump seems to confuse America’s heartland for one of his ex-wives; he claims to love them, then screws them over, then insists it’s for their own good. “The Cattle Ranchers, who I love,” he wrote this week, before announcing a plan that would basically gut the very industry he claims to adore. In Trump’s America, love always comes with a non-disclosure agreement—and apparently, a side of imported Argentine beef.

Let’s be clear: when the president of the United States tells you he’s looking out for you, it’s usually because you’re about to get hit by the truck he’s driving. This time, it’s America’s ranchers under the wheels. After years of drought, labor shortages, and skyrocketing feed costs, many small cattle producers were finally beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. Then Trump—the self-proclaimed “America First” president—decides it’s time to “help” by buying cheaper beef from Argentina.

The move, supposedly designed to “lower prices,” is about as sensible as handing out umbrellas in a hurricane. Sure, it sounds good. But importing more foreign beef doesn’t magically make U.S. steaks cheaper; it just kneecaps American ranchers already limping from decades of market manipulation by the corporate meatpacking cartel.

And that’s the part Trump either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care to. The U.S. beef market isn’t “free” in any meaningful sense. Four companies—Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef—control over 80% of processing. They set prices, they fix supply, and when caught doing it, they write a check, call it a settlement, and go back to business as usual. Recently, Tyson and Cargill paid out $87.5 million in a class-action lawsuit over price-fixing—chump change compared to what they made gouging ranchers and consumers alike.

But instead of going after the monopolies, Trump blames the ranchers while patting himself on the back for tariffs he insists are saving them. In his words, “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.” Translation: You’re welcome, peasants.

Try telling that to Destinee Weeks in Oklahoma, who just saw her first real profit in ten years running a 250-head operation with her husband. When she heard about the plan to flood the market with Argentine beef, she called it “a slap in the face.” And she’s right. This isn’t about helping the consumer or stabilizing the market—it’s about Trump doing what Trump does best: transactional loyalty. He handed Argentina a $20 billion currency swap deal to help “a friend in need.” The same week, he quadrupled the tariff-rate quota for Argentine beef.

It’s foreign policy dressed up as a discount at the grocery store—except the people paying for it are the ranchers who helped elect him. The irony? These are the same folks who wear MAGA hats to the feed store, who believed Trump’s “America First” meant them. Turns out it meant “America first, unless I owe someone else a bigger favor.”

And the White House, sensing the outrage, scrambled to announce an “action plan” through the USDA to “support domestic ranchers.” Translation: a few crumbs for the people you just undercut. It’s like punching someone in the face, then offering them an ice pack as proof of your compassion.

Economists, meanwhile, are rolling their eyes. David Anderson of Texas A&M noted that Argentina doesn’t even have enough beef to move U.S. prices significantly. In other words, this whole thing isn’t going to lower your grocery bill—but it will make life hell for small and mid-sized producers. A perfect Trump policy: all optics, no outcome, and chaos in between.

And let’s not ignore the broader hypocrisy. This is a man who built his brand on “Buy American,” who turned the phrase “America First” into a political religion—and now he’s cutting deals that make U.S. ranchers feel, in their own words, “invisible.” When you’ve lost the cowboys, you’ve lost the base.

John Boyd Jr., founder of the National Black Farmers Association, summed it up perfectly: “Everything that the president is messing with and interfering with affects my farming operation.” This from a man who’s already taken hits from Trump’s trade war with China. The pattern is obvious: Trump creates chaos, blames someone else, then promises to fix it—often by making another deal that breaks something else.

So yes, please, love someone else. Because the cattle ranchers of America are finally realizing that Trump’s version of love is a lot like his business record: it sounds great until the bill comes due.

At the end of the day, it’s not just about beef; it’s about betrayal. These are the people who fed him, funded him, and filled his rallies. And now, he’s feeding them imported steak.

Trump once said, “I alone can fix it.” Maybe. But he’s also very good at breaking things first—and right now, he’s breaking the very people who believed he was their champion.

For them, this isn’t just an economic hit; it’s an emotional one. Because nothing cuts deeper than realizing the man you voted for, defended, and believed in, loves Argentina’s cattle more than yours.

So to America’s ranchers: it’s time to move on. Love someone else. Because this one? He’s just not that into you.