Should Producers Worry About Beef Imports?
Since President Donald Trump announced the U.S is expanding the annual tariff rate quotas for Argentinian beef from 20,000 metric tons (mt) to 80,000 mt a year on Feb. 6, beef producers have been expressing their concerns.
On Oct. 5, 2025, Trump visited with reporters on the issue of high grocery prices while flying back to Washington, D.C.
He said, “And one of the things we’re thinking about doing is beef from Argentina, and if we buy some beef – I’m not talking that much from Argentina – it would help Argentina, which we consider a very good country, a very good ally.”
At the time, the president was talking about allowing 10,000 mt of duty-free beef trimmings a year into the U.S.
Earlier, Trump met with the President of Argentina, and they hit it off. They decided to allow more U.S. beef exports into Argentina.
Trump soon realized he faced backlash from beef producers and state politicians. After his announcement, the five-market average cash cattle price dropped 13 percent and feeder and live cattle futures dropped for several days.
Since then, nothing has really happened with Argentina and beef imports. A number of people said the amount wouldn’t change the price of ground beef at the grocery anyway.
However, the issue jumped back into the news on Feb. 6 when U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer and Argentina Minister of Foreign Affairs Pablo Quirno signed the U.S.-Argentina Agreement on Reciprocal Trade and Investment.
This agreement opened a tariff-rate quota which went even further, specifying an additional 80,000 mt limited to fresh, chilled or frozen boneless beef at 20,000 mt each quarter. These lean trimmings would be used to blend with U.S. fat – which we have plenty of – into ground beef, which will mostly go into fast-food burgers.
Trump’s order only grants the additional 80,000 mt for this year. The 100,000 mt would account for under five percent of U.S. beef imports and total around one percent of total beef consumption.
There are those in the international beef trade who are skeptical of Argentina meeting their quota. They do raise a lot of cattle and some have some really good genetics from the U.S. I imagine their northern cattle are all Brahman, while English and other continental breeds may be in the southern half of the country.
Argentina’s ability to deliver 100,000 mt of beef trimmings to the U.S. this year sounds questionable.
U.S. beef imports from Argentina were around 33,357 mt through November 2025, as tight supplies and tariff-related disruption of imports from Brazil boosted demand for lean trim from Argentina.
Argentina’s total beef exports have jumped by 22 percent by value last year. By tonnage, the exports for the last three years have averaged almost 900,000 mt.
Per capita, Argentines are among the world’s biggest beef eaters, consuming about 75 percent of the country’s beef production. So it sounds like they eat the steaks and roasts, and we get the trimmings.
New research from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy found U.S. importers and consumers bear about 96 percent of the tariff burden, with exporters absorbing only about four percent.
