Commentary by Stephen Macaulay
On August 21, Donald Trump took to his ill-named social media platform to announce that as many as 300,000 metric tons of ground beef will be permitted to be imported to the US with “no out-of-quota tariff.”
The reason?
“This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again,” he wrote.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the average price of a pound of ground beef in January 2025 — Biden’s last month in office — was $5.545.
The average price of the same in July 2026, well into Trump’s second term? $6.885 per pound.
That’s a 24% increase.
Wait a minute. Wasn’t Trump going to lower the cost of “the groceries”?
That’s certainly not lowering it.
To be fair, this is not all Trump’s fault.
One of the things he hasn’t managed to keep south of the US border is Cochliomyia hominivorax, a.k.a., the “screw worm,” which is killing cattle. (This should not be confused with the parasitic tape worm that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said he had had in his brain.)
Fewer cattle means higher prices for beef.
But there is something that cannot be overlooked in Trump’s statement: He is lifting tariffs to reduce prices.
While they never like to say this out loud, the tariff regime that Trump has applied in either a willy-nilly or vindictive manner is costing the American public money.
This is not just beef. It is all of those goods that are imported into the US from other countries because the American public wants to buy them.
As of August 22, 2026, the Trump Administration has put on 50% tariffs on $20-billion worth of goods coming from our largest trading partner and our former best ally (until Trump trashed the relationship), Canada.
Even goods — from automobiles to hockey sticks — that had been covered by the USMCA trade agreement signed by Donald Trump are now subject to the 50% tariffs.
This led Canadian prime minster Mark Carney to say that when it comes to trade deals, the US “signature was written in pencil.”
Erased at will.
Carney, who has a doctorate in economics from Oxford, knows more than a little about finance and trade, given that he was the governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008-2013, meaning he helped get Canada through the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, and the governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, meaning he was the first non-Brit to lead that bank since its establishment (1694) and that he had to guide the UK economy through Brexit and COVID.
Odds are a man with that background doesn’t make statements about economic issues affecting his country on a whim.
Trump has a BA in Economics from the Wharton School; his pre-political career was being a reality TV show character and real estate developer.
Evidence shows that a man with his background says things one day and something else the next.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer — whose background is as an attorney — said on August 22, “Two countries have retaliated against the United States: the People’s Republic of China and Canada.” This retaliation in the context of China is the country essentially saying, “We are an economic powerhouse, too, so you’re not going to push us around.” The retaliation in the context of Canada is predicated on principle: If you establish a trade agreement, then you live by its rules. When Trump signed the USMCA in 2020 he called it “the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law,” and now says “We do better as a country if we don’t have an agreement.”
Which brings us back to the ground beef.
The American people are paying a whole lot more not only for burgers, but for coffee, cars and cantaloupes. Fuel import costs are up 20%.
So if tariffs are the cause of some of the price increases that Americans are facing when they go to the grocery store or Walmart or wherever, and if tariff suspension is a tactic being used by the Trump Administration to reduce the prices of a particular product, wouldn’t tariff relief make sense across the board?
We have an Administration driven by petulance. And we are all paying for it.
What is the national advantage we are getting from ill-conceived trade policies (to say nothing of the ill-conceived war against Iran)?
Where is the resurgence in manufacturing that Trump claimed would occur—a resurgence that has not only not happened but has led to a situation where over 75,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since he took office?
Where’s the beef?
Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, writing primarily for the right column.