Recently, President Trump announced that the U. S. will lower tariff barriers, allowing 80,000 metric tons of lean beef trimmings to be imported from Argentina this year. Lean trimmings are pieces of beef that are left after carcasses are broken down into retail cuts in slaughter facilities. Ostensibly the reason for this move is to lower the price of beef for U.S. consumers . While 80,000 pounds sounds like a lot of beef, the USDA Economic Research Service states that Argentina shipped about 51 and a half million metric tons of beef to the U.S. in 2025. The beef industry organization Rcalf USA, points out that this isn’t a new idea, since previous administrations have done the same thing, but this proposed plan for curing high beef prices hasn’t been effective in the past. Instead, they contend that increased imports have led to a shrinking U.S. beef herd and higher consumer prices. As of Monday, cattle markets have shrugged off the news of increased imports from Argentina, with traders seeming to believe that the impacts of these proposed imports will be limited in the long term. They’re expecting that the U.S. beef cattle herd will continue to remain the smallest it’s been since 1951, while remaining unchanged from 2025, when ranchers continued to sell animals for slaughter rather than retaining them to rebuild their herds. This downsizing began three to four years ago because of high input costs and drought in the U.S. that has limited the number of cattle they could sustain on farms and ranches.
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a clarification letter to agricultural equipment manufacturers, stating that the Clean Air Act does not prohibit owners or independent shops from making repairs on off road diesel equipment, such as farm machinery. The agency stated that manufacturers “can no longer” use the act to “justify limiting access to repair tools or software.” Farmers have lobbied to get this waiver for several years. In a recent press release, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin stated that the agency is “proud to set the record straight while protecting farmers, since manufacturers have wrongly used the Clean Air Act to monopolize the repair markets, hurting our farmers.” The EPA explained that the Clean Air Act prohibits the removal or disabling of emission control systems, the law has a written exception that allows these systems to be disabled for the purpose of a repair. According to the EPA, this letter was “a direct response” to a request for guidance from John Deere, asking the EPA to confirm that temporary emission control overrides were permitted under the law. Deere & Co. has been involved in the right-to-repair issue with the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys generals from several farming states that were suing the company for alleged “unfair practices” related to equipment repairs. Farmers often found themselves in a bind during the busy crop planting and harvest seasons, when their equipment broke down, while local dealers often lacked the manpower to be able to send technicians to farm shops and fields to make simple repairs that many farmers could do on their own. Up until now, farmers have been forced to rely on equipment dealers, because farmers making those repairs would have voided farm equipment company warranties, along with the possibility that they could be fined by the EPA for violating Clean Air regulations.
Will Rogers wrote, “Do the best you can and don't take life too serious.”
