Trump Targets ‘Illegal Collusion’ Among Big Meat Packers

On Friday, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into the nation’s largest meat-packing companies for potential collusion, price fixing, and price manipulation.

The administration shared the update on whitehouse.gov, saying that the action targets the foreign-dominated conglomerates that control America’s meat supply and have been accused of artificially inflating prices at the expense of farmers, ranchers, and working families.

“It’s time to protect AMERICAN CONSUMERS,” reads the White House’s statement. 

President Donald Trump announced that the investigation is aimed at what he called the “handful of giant meat packers” that have “squeezed America’s cattle producers, shrunk herds, and jacked up prices at the grocery store.”

The investigation, Trump said, will examine “whether these companies have violated antitrust laws through coordinated pricing or capacity restrictions.” The goal, he added, is to “root out any illegal collusion, restore fair competition, and protect our food security.”

At the center of the probe are the so-called “Big Four” meat packers — JBS (Brazil), Cargill, Tyson Foods, and National Beef — which together “currently dominate 85 percent of the U.S. beef processing market, up from just 36 percent in 1980.” Trump noted that “two of these companies, including the largest meat packer in the world, are either foreign-owned or have significant foreign ownership and control.”

According to the statement, “Industry consolidation has crushed competition and hammered cattle producers.” In the 1980s, the top four packers purchased “one-third of all fed cattle,” but by the mid-1990s, “that share exploded to over 80% and has only grown more concentrated since.”

Trump’s remarks underscore what many producers have long argued — that this consolidation has “led to the exploitation of American consumers, farmers, and ranchers.” The statement cites “mounting evidence” showing that monopoly power “has slashed payments to ranchers, reduced herd sizes, driven up consumer prices, and threatened America’s food supply chain.”

Concluding his remarks, Trump reaffirmed his political and economic stance toward rural America: “President Trump will ALWAYS have the backs of our Great American Farmers.”