{"id":197461,"date":"2025-11-24T10:54:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T10:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/197461\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T10:54:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T10:54:18","slug":"will-rising-beef-prices-ever-come-down-heres-what-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/197461\/","title":{"rendered":"Will rising beef prices ever come down? Here\u2019s what experts say"},"content":{"rendered":"

(NEXSTAR) \u2013 Beef prices are going to remain high and likely climb<\/a> even higher before consumers can expect to see any relief in the coming years, experts say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing anybody can do about it in the short run,\u201d Dr. Derrell Peel,<\/a> a professor of agriculture economics and the extension specialist for livestock marketing at Oklahoma State University, told Nexstar. \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough cattle, and it takes an extended amount of time to produce more. So we\u2019re in it for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The high price of beef has prompted finger-pointing from politicians within the Trump administration and beyond. In separate interviews with Fox Business this past week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins<\/a> and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent<\/a> blamed the Biden administration for at least some of the problems with supply.<\/p>\n

But Democrats have argued that prices of several staple grocery items have only skyrocketed under President Trump, and that his tariffs on beef imports (which he finally said he\u2019d scrap<\/a> earlier this month) have done nothing but exacerbate the problem.<\/p>\n

Experts who spoke with Nexstar, however, said there were other factors at play \u2014 specifically droughts that thinned the U.S. cattle supply over several years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeef prices are being driven by the fundamentals I\u2019ve talked about for months: the U.S. cattle herd is at a 70-year low, demand remains extremely strong, and it will take time for supply to rebuild,\u201d Nate Rempe, the president and CEO of Omaha Steaks, told Nexstar. \u201cThose factors, not politics, are what will keep upward pressure on prices into next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peel, speaking with Nexstar, said the cattle industry is inherently cyclical and usually self-correcting. (When inventory is high and prices are low, cattle producers liquidate herds; when inventory is low and prices are rising, cattle producers tend to reserve some of the female livestock for breeding to increase herd sizes.)<\/p>\n

But Peel says the current cycle began in 2019, when herd sizes began to decline. Droughts in the following years certainly exacerbated the problem, but Peel also believes that uncertainty within the cattle industry \u2014 fueled by the Trump administration\u2019s talk about importing beef,<\/a> or open grazing land<\/a> \u2014 might now be gumming up the works of the cyclical cattle production cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these things inject uncertainty in the market \u2026 and slows down the pace that the producers will rebuild, slows down the cattle industry,\u201d Peel said. \u201cIt means everybody kinda hunkers down and pulls in their horns a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bessent, in his interview, also claimed that rising beef prices could partially be blamed on \u201cmigrants\u201d from Mexico who allegedly brought screw worm-infected cattle over the border, forcing the U.S. to stop imports from the country. But again, Peel said Bessent \u201cdoesn\u2019t know what \u2026 he\u2019s talking about.\u201d Peel explained that the U.S. only imports between 1 million and 1.2 million head of cattle from Mexico per year, which is \u201cnot insignificant,\u201d but only makes up about 3.3 percent of total imports, and isn\u2019t a major factor in rising prices.<\/p>\n

\"Beef<\/p>\n

Beef cattle feed at a ranch in Sonoita, Arizona, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (Rebecca Noble\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Peel said the one thing that might bring down prices, albeit \u201cslightly,\u201d is a recent executive order to roll back tariffs on beef imports, but it would only affect the prices of ground beef (beef imports into the U.S. largely supplement ground beef production), and might not even be noticeable at the consumer level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat may have a slight moderating effect,\u201d Peel told Nexstar, \u201cbut it\u2019s not going to have a major impact. And I\u2019m not sure we\u2019re going to be able to detect it, to be honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rempe, speaking with Fox Business earlier this month, had predicted a \u201creality\u201d in which ground beef would reach $10 per pound before the end of 2026. Peel couldn\u2019t say for certain, but noted that prices for ground beef are already \u201cnot far off\u201d in parts of the U.S., while the costs of other cuts have risen even faster<\/a> since last year.<\/p>\n

Both Rempe and Peel, meanwhile, say prices aren\u2019t likely to come down for a long time, despite attempts at intervention from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is in for a bit of a long haul here, and we won\u2019t really see material downward movement in price until late 2027,\u201d Rempe told Nexstar.<\/p>\n

Peel suggested a similar time frame, adding that inventory will get even slimmer (and prices even higher) before the cycle corrects itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inevitably biology of cattle production means it\u2019s going to get tighter before we get better, before we start retaining those females for cattle production,\u201d he said. \u201cIncreased imports may affect a little bit of those ground beef prices, but steak prices at restaurants, or stores \u2014 there\u2019s absolutely nothing anybody can do about it for two to four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(NEXSTAR) \u2013 Beef prices are going to remain high and likely climb even higher before consumers can expect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[109605,30654,79,109606,109608,109604,179,18,46601,19,17,109607,60278,67603,3191,2712],"class_list":{"0":"post-197461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-beef-imports","9":"tag-beef-prices","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-cattle-industry","12":"tag-cattle-producers","13":"tag-derrell-peel","14":"tag-economy","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-fox-business","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-nate-rempe","20":"tag-nexstar","21":"tag-oklahoma-state-university","22":"tag-president-trump","23":"tag-scott-bessent"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115604309184802609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}