U.S. plans to open land for cattle ranching as beef prices soar

The Trump administration will soon roll out a “big package” intended to bolster U.S. beef production as consumers struggle with a surge in prices, according to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

“What we are going to do is to incentivize to open up new lands, to make it easier to become a rancher, to build more processing plants around the country, so there aren’t just a handful in the middle of the country,” Rollins said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday.

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She added that the U.S. had over the years sent a lot of its beef production to countries like Brazil, and that now was the time to reverse course: “We’ll be able to begin to move the onshoring of beef back to America.”

Americans find themselves paying far more for beef as the herd has shrunk to its smallest in decades after years of depressed prices, droughts and escalating costs forced farmers to cull more cows. No meaningful rebound is expected before 2027 or 2028, making President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to bring down grocery costs more challenging.

A ban on imports of cattle from Mexico over sanitary concerns and an increase in tariffs on purchases from Brazil are tightening supplies further.

Trump said earlier this week the U.S. would bolster beef imports from Argentina as part of efforts to bring down prices for consumers, a move that drew criticism from rancher lobbying groups. Rollins, however, told CNBC that imported volumes from the South American nation “will not be very much” relative to total consumption.

Sen. Deb Fischer, a Nebraska Republican, criticized the Argentine proposal Tuesday, pointing out that the U.S. beef market “is the one bright spot in our struggling ag economy.”

“I strongly encourage the Trump administration to focus on trade deals that benefit our ag producers-not imports that will do more harm than good,” she wrote in a post on X.