Tariffs, Fuel, and Imported Beef: A Three-Pronged Squeeze on U.S. Ranchers and Trump's "America First" Promise

According to BBC reporting, in Nebraska, in the heart of the United States, rancher Yvette Mannon had already endured a difficult spring — a wildfire destroyed 1,600 acres of her ranch and 13 miles of fencing. Months later, three policy decisions out of Washington struck her cash flow in succession: duty-free imports of foreign beef sent live cattle prices tumbling, surging diesel prices driven by the so-called "Iran war" sharply increased the cost of feeding operations, and tariffs pursued by the Trump administration pushed the steel needed to rebuild her fencing to multi-year highs.

"So 'Buy American,' 'Make America Great Again,'" the 63-year-old rancher, who has voted for Trump, told the BBC. "But for the rest of you folks, sorry. That is a real betrayal."

Mannon's experience is not an isolated case. Reporting filed by BBC journalist Sheila Flynn from Nebraska notes that steel prices are at their highest levels in years, driving her fencing reconstruction costs to $4.89 per foot, with total spending exceeding $300,000. At the same time, she must haul hay by tractor every day to cattle that lost their pasture — and diesel prices have climbed more than 40 percent compared with the previous year.

The most destructive blow came in August, when it was announced that the Trump administration would import 300,000 metric tons of duty-free foreign beef to push down consumer prices. The announcement landed precisely during September through November — the key window when most American calves are weaned and sold — and live cattle prices collapsed immediately afterward.

Jake Wolfinger, who runs a 5,500-head cattle finishing operation near Lexington, told the BBC that the price he receives for live cattle has dropped from $240 per hundredweight to $225. "It doesn't sound like a big difference, but it means a potential loss of several hundred dollars per head." He likewise pointed to the reality of some of his farm machinery burning through 400 gallons of diesel per day.

"It really makes you think," said the 45-year-old rancher, who acknowledges he voted for Trump because "the country needed his spirit." He also criticized the government's intervention in the beef market: "People should stay out of farmers' business. It's harvest time."

Fifty-four-year-old Duane Kimball has a prominent Trump banner hanging in his own barn. He told the BBC that the "daily markup" on costs like diesel is painful, and "I know a lot of people have had to go back to the bank and raise their lines of credit." He does not attribute every economic challenge to Trump, but instead points out that burdensome regulations and rising machinery and fertilizer prices began before Trump's return to the White House.

The political backlash is already beginning to show. BBC reporting notes that independent candidate Dan Osborn, facing Trump-endorsed Republican Pete Ricketts, has performed unexpectedly strongly in polls ahead of the November Senate election. Both the Republican Party and Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen recently announced fuel-cost relief measures aimed at farmers.

Nevertheless, many Trump-supporting farmers remain inclined to give the president "the benefit of the doubt." Don Cantrell, who operates a 12,000-acre family farm, told the BBC that while the president "has done some stupid things" and "said some stupid things," he still considers him "on the whole the best president," praising his creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut waste. Wolfinger described Trump as "sometimes shoot first and aim later," and said he "hopes he will holster the gun first and think before acting," while expressing confidence that he is "governing broadly in the right direction."

On the other side of the economic reality lie the shattered multigenerational family dreams. Sixty-seven-year-old corn and soybean grower Don Batie told the BBC that corn prices have fallen from $7 per bushel in early 2022 to $4.29 three years later, while costs have not dropped accordingly. He has abandoned his long-held aspiration of passing on his 400-acre farm to his daughter. He voted for Trump in 2016 and supported him again in the primary, but did not vote for him in the 2024 general election. He said that, traveling around the state, he hears similar grumbling: "They're still committed Republicans, but they're no longer Trump supporters."

Sixty-nine-year-old rancher Jim Jenkins is a longtime critic of Trump — he has not voted for him in three general elections. He told the BBC plainly that the across-the-board rise in prices for diesel, fertilizer, lumber, and steel, combined with the "uncertainty" — "what the president's next announcement will mean" — is what keeps him up at night. He said: "I was hoping he would be a pragmatic businessman. It turned out to be exactly the opposite."

University of Arkansas agricultural economist James Mitchell told the BBC that these policy decisions have "overall had a negative impact on the beef market," but cattle prices are simultaneously influenced by multiple factors — a roughly 10- to 12-year cycle, historically low herd numbers, and drought — and the industry cycle itself is in a downturn phase. In other words, how much weight to assign to the Trump administration's decisions remains a quantitatively unresolved question.

At an indoor cattle auction in Broken Bow, Nebraska, buyers in cowboy hats and flannel shirts raise their paddles as usual. Mannon told the BBC by way of summary: "People in agriculture are eternal optimists — otherwise we wouldn't be in this business." With only weeks to go before the midterm elections, whether the discontent spreading among farmers will translate into votes remains something only the November results can answer.