Cattle operator warns that the US cattle industry is being 'destroyed' by U.S. gov.
- TC
- Nov 25
- 4 min read
Updated: 16 hours ago
26/11/25 video: (2:00 minute mark)
CEO of Omaha Steaks: "we are headed for $10.00 / lb. reality for ground beef by Q3 2026."
Secretary Rollins: "Our numbers don't show that, and I've made a note to reach out to him, BUT we have a plan in place for this. "
Plan is to import 80,000 MT of Argentine beef at discounted tariff rate.
U.S. Rancher / farmer blowback ensues:
Historical precedent:
"The Nixon administration began to manipulate beef prices in late-1973. This created a 5-year bear market in CME cattle. The cattle market was fouled up for the next 6 years."*
"By the time Nixon reimposed a temporary freeze in June 1973, Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw explain in The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, it was obvious that price controls didn’t work: “Ranchers stopped shipping their cattle to the market, farmers drowned their chickens, and consumers emptied the shelves of supermarkets.” Remembering Nixon's Wage and Price Controls | Cato Institute
*Source: (1) Dave Reiter on X: "#LE_F The Nixon administration began to manipulate beef prices in late-1973. This created a 5-year bear market in CME cattle. The cattle market was fouled up for the next 6 years. #Cattle https://t.co/Z0KTKC3Qh8" / X
Here, an uncanny description of the Nixon economy and some decisions that contributed to the '73 stagflation crisis.
"In 1973, just as Watergate began spinning out of control, the economy came crashing down. The Fed’s easy money policy and the administration’s budget had so overheated the economy (GNP grew at a real rate of 8.7 percent during the first quarter of 1973) that Americans engaged in an orgy of consumption, creating shortages of raw materials like chemicals, paper, steel and copper that soon drove wholesale and retail prices through the roof. The end of Phase II in January and the introduction of Phase III, which retained mandatory controls on only a handful of sectors (namely, health care, food and construction), exacerbated the problem.
Had cost-push inflation been the only source of economic woe, the president’s troubles would have been bad enough. But a series of events — some coincidental, others owing to Nixon’s ineptitude as a manager — conspired to create what economists call “supply shock” inflation, particularly in the all-important food and energy sectors.
First, heavy snows in the Soviet Union destroyed much of the country’s wheat harvest, while warm water currents in the Pacific Ocean flowed to the Peruvian coastline, decimating the anchovy harvest. Anchovies were a key ingredient of high protein feed grain, a necessary staple for U.S. livestock farmers.
Second, in 1972, the Soviets had quietly cornered the U.S. grain market, using $750 million in American credits and $500 million in hard currency to buy up one-quarter of the American wheat harvest. Nixon had extended the credit and eased the way for the purchase in an effort to secure Soviet acceptance of arms control agreements that he believed (correctly) would bolster his reelection campaign. He never anticipated the economic fallout."
Here is the University of Illinois:
"Looking back on 1973 from the vantage point of 1994, former Secretary of Agriculture Edward R. Madigan wrote that it was “hard to believe that the Peruvian anchovy harvest and the Watergate affair could impact on international trade negotiations occurring twenty years later, but those events did have a major effect on trade relations between the United States and the European Community” in the 1980s and into the early 1990s (Madigan 1994). An El Nino event off the coast of Peru harmed the anchovy harvest—an important source of protein for animal feed—contributing to a soybean price spike at a time when the Nixon Administration was trying to control inflation, while battling Congressional investigations (Coppess 2018; Akihiko 2017; Madigan 1994). "
Trade policies are complicating free trade and increasing supply chain volatility. The economic fallout is spreading. The beef industry might be a bell-weather. How fast the commodity price tide can turn, fundamentals be damned.
Nov 24, 2025
"Lexington, Nebraska plant employs roughly 3,200 people in the city of 11,000 and has the capacity to slaughter some 5,000 head of cattle a day. Tyson also plans to cut one of the two shifts at a plant in Amarillo, Texas, and eliminate 1,700 jobs there. Together those two moves will reduce beef processing capacity nationwide by 7-9%."
Government interventions and lack of supply are reducing processing capacities:
Nov 25, 2025 - Tyson announced closure of Amarillo processing plant. 1761 jobs.
The carnage is spreading to retail.
Supply chain volatility increases.
