Gov. Evers Sends Letter to the Trump Administration, Urging the President to Support American Producers and Ranchers, Back Off Plans to Import Beef from Argentina…Again

I write to urge you to immediately reverse your recent executive order that aims to quadruple foreign beef
imports from Argentina. We should be putting American farmers and producers first, and supporting our
farmers and producers who work tirelessly to feed our families and keep our shelves stocked. Wisconsin’s
livestock and meat industry alone represents more than $34 billion in economic activity and supports over
43,000 jobs. This policy puts those livelihoods at risk.

In October, I wrote to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Rollins outlining the serious harm this
approach would inflict on American producers. Despite that letter, and despite widespread opposition from
farmers, ranchers, industry groups, and members of Congress from both parties, your administration moved forward with this policy and then recently doubled down on it. This decision is shortsighted and will cause real harm to Wisconsin’s farmers and producers while doing little to lower costs for consumers.

Wisconsin is home to thousands of cattle producers and dairy farmers who play a critical role in bringing beef to the marketplace. These producers have already endured years of drought and fires, rising feed costs, and the economic volatility caused by your administration’s reckless trade wars and erratic tariffs. The U.S. cattle herd is currently at a 75-year low, and rather than supporting American producers as they work to rebuild their herds, this executive order subsidizes farmers thousands of miles away. Flooding the market with 80,000 metric tons of Argentine beef undermines the livelihoods of Wisconsin families who have invested their lives in this industry and sends exactly the wrong signal to producers considering whether to invest in growing their herds.

This policy isn’t only impacting our farmers trying to rebuild their herds. Nationwide beef processors have
already felt the strain from the struggling cattle industry and volatile markets. This month, Cargill announced the permanent closure of their Milwaukee ground meat processing facility. This follows Tyson Foods’ announcement last November regarding a major beef plant closure in Nebraska. Clearly, this is an industry already in distress, which will only worsen when the market includes an influx of Argentinian beef and fewer processing plants to facilitate operations to get the meat onto grocery store shelves.

This decision follows a troubling pattern of your trade policies that have hurt Wisconsin’s agricultural economy. Your administration’s chaotic and reckless tariffs and trade wars have already cost our state’s farmers dearly. When China shifted over $12 billion in annual soybean purchases away from the United States and toward South America, Wisconsin’s soybean farmers lost one of their biggest markets. In the third quarter of 2025, Wisconsin soybean exports were down 51 percent, with the largest contributors to the decline being Mexico, Indonesia, and China, in part due to tariffs. Now, rather than working to restore those markets and rebuild confidence among American producers, your administration is rewarding Argentina with an unprecedented expansion of preferential access to the U.S. beef market, a deal Argentina’s own government has valued at roughly $800 million in additional exports. Wisconsin’s farmers deserve federal leadership that has their backs, not leadership that repeatedly puts foreign competitors ahead of the people who feed our communities.

Adding insult to injury, this policy is unlikely to deliver meaningful relief to consumers at the grocery store.
Recent analysis from agricultural economists shows that 80,000 metric tons of additional imports is a quantity too small to meaningfully reduce prices for families at the checkout line, yet large enough to destabilize the market for domestic farmers and ranchers working to rebuild their herds. Industry leaders have also noted that previous efforts to lower beef prices through increased imports did not succeed. Instead, those imports correlated with further contraction of the domestic herd. The path to sustainably lower beef prices remains in rebuilding America’s cattle herds, a process that takes years and requires supporting producers, not undercutting them with foreign imports.

Mr. President, this is not a partisan issue. Leaders from across the political spectrum, along with organizations including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, the National Farmers Union, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, have voiced strong opposition to this policy. Our farmers keep our families fed and our economy running here in Wisconsin and across the country. I urge you to stop turning your back on America’s Dairyland and our farmers and agricultural industries. Reverse this disastrous and shortsighted executive order and instead let us work to develop lasting solutions that encourage domestic beef production, protect our food supply, and safeguard long-term food security for all Americans.

Respectfully,