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The debate over beef imports is often framed as foreign product undercutting American ranchers. A cattle farmer is pushing back on that narrative — and the supply chain math backs him up.

The majority of imported ground beef is not sold as finished product and therefore does not compete with ground beef sold by American producers. The majority of imported ground beef is lean trim — about 90% lean — produced from grass-fed cattle from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Uruguay, said a cattle farmer source in North Carolina.

"Most of the ground beef that is imported doesn’t really compete with domestic production," the farmer explained. "It’s mostly lean trim that is blended with fattier domestic trim from grain-finished US cattle to create the ground beef that Americans prefer."

Removing imports of lean trim from grass-finished cattle would not protect American ranchers — it would hurt them. Processing lean trim from cull cows domestically would flood the market with lean protein, driving down the value of the fatty trimmings that grain-finished US producers depend on.

"Without these imports, we’d need to slaughter far more cull cows domestically, which would actually reduce the value of fatty trimmings from fed cattle," the farmer said.

A second and generally unreported consequence to U.S. import policy: the American cattle herd is currently in the rebuilding phase after several years of decline. Compelling domestic processors to slaughter more cows to strip out lean trim would immediately and strongly impede the rebuilding of the American cowherd by prematurely removing breeding stock from the national herd.

The exemption for lean beef trim imports, he argues, is not a loophole or a giveaway to foreign producers. It targets a specific supply gap that American production cannot efficiently fill on its own — and closing it would do more damage to domestic cattle markets than leaving it open.

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