WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – President Donald Trump announced Friday his administration will allow more beef to be temporarily imported into the United States without triggering higher tariffs. The move comes as beef prices have climbed to record highs.<\/p>\n
Jason Hawkins, vice president of the Kansas Cattlemen\u2019s Association, reacted to the announcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, we\u2019re actually importing nearly 30% of the consumption of beef in America right now. And that really kind of pains me because when I was a little kid, we exported beef, and now we import beef,\u201d Hawkins said.<\/p>\n
The idea behind the decision is to bring down the record high prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our country has a good Secretary of Agriculture. I\u2019ve heard a lot of her interviews, and I think she has the right motivations. I\u2019m just not sure our president\u2019s listening to her… I like a lot of what he does, but I don\u2019t like what he did today,\u201d Hawkins said.<\/p>\n
Hawkins said all levels of the cattle industry are concerned the move will flood the market.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re against lowering prices of beef. I just don\u2019t think we\u2019ll see that effect. Probably just going to see lower prices for us producers,\u201d Hawkins said.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s plan allows up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef to be imported into the U.S. for the next 90 days without triggering a tariff, ensuring the imported beef would be sold at 25% below current market rates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard some reports that it represents about eight days worth of American consumption spread out across three months. So if you put yourself in kind of the retail sector, or even the processing sector, you know, are you really going to lower your prices for kind of an eight-day blip?\u201d Hawkins said.<\/p>\n
At Yoder Meats off south Maize Road in west Wichita, customers remain loyal, saying they are taking advantage of specials and bulk-buying to navigate soaring beef prices across the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get their bundles. Their monthly bundles. And it\u2019s amazing how much meat you get in their bundle for like 90 bucks or 100 bucks, compared to if you were to go to the grocery store,\u201d customer Danielle Gardner said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually I went home with about two or three steaks that would last me through the week, a couple minute-steaks… but now I\u2019m down to maybe a steak for the weekend, and that\u2019s really all. That\u2019s really all I can afford now,\u201d customer Xander Weninger said.<\/p>\n
Customers say they also appreciate Yoder Meats because they know the beef is American and sourced locally, but some are changing their diets to other meats like chicken and pork.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s ever going to change and think it might be something we got to get used to. Uh, I\u2019m not sure… I wish we would get lower, but I\u2019ve just adjusted the way I eat a little bit,\u201d customer Cane Steele said.<\/p>\n
The Kansas Cattlemen\u2019s Association said decreases in the American cattle herd are also a factor in the rise in beef prices, pointing out it is harder to keep cattle and grow herds at current prices.<\/p>\n
The KCA also said high input costs, especially the cost of land for cattle to graze on, have also driven up beef prices.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KWCH. All rights reserved. To report a correction or typo, please email news@kwch.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – President Donald Trump announced Friday his administration will allow more beef to be temporarily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[46062,333,8868,88283,88282,88181,37996,17754,88280,38004,88281,37995,37997,88278,88279,10,65,11,64,38000],"class_list":["post-197548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-donald-trump","tag-12-news","tag-agriculture","tag-beef","tag-beef-exports","tag-beef-imports","tag-beef-prices","tag-kake","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-cattlemens-association","tag-kansas-farmers","tag-kca","tag-ksn","tag-kwch","tag-kwch-12","tag-kwch-news","tag-potus","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-president-of-the-united-states","tag-president-trump","tag-wichita"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117137619373356668","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}