Ground beef hit a record $6.90 a pound in spring 2026 and has stayed there — $6.89 in July. And in August, the Trump administration responded three times in eight days: a 300,000 metric-ton import quota, a signed proclamation, and a social media post promising ranchers could process and sell their own cattle. Objections came from inside the president’s own party, with more than a dozen Republican senators and 21 House Republicans raising concerns.

So TCS went to the paperwork. Steve Ellis and Director of Research and Policy Josh Sewell pulled every presidential and agency action touching agriculture and food prices since January of last year: 16 presidential actions, four more from agencies, and not one requiring a new vote in Congress.

Josh sorts out what actually carries the force of law — executive orders, agency rules, proclamations, and Truth Social posts — and why the beef proclamations under Section 404 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act don’t touch the real problem. The smallest July cattle herd since 1973. A near-closed Mexican border since May 2025 because of screwworm. Diesel at $5.65 a gallon. The farm share of the retail beef dollar down to 51 percent. And $39.1 billion in farm subsidies since January of last year — including $12 billion in Farmer Bridge payments drawn from the Commodity Credit Corporation’s $30 billion line of credit, with roughly none of it headed to cattle producers.

With the CCC checkbook sitting open, no farm bill out of committee, and lawmakers floating a cap increase to $90 billion, this isn’t a story about beef. It’s a story about who decides.

Announcer (00:02):

Welcome to Budget Watchdog, All Federal, the podcast dedicated to making sense of the budget, spending, and tax issues facing the nation. Cut through the partisan rhetoric and talking points for the facts about what’s being talked about, bandied about, and pushed in Washington. Brought to you by Taxpayers for Common Sense. And now the host of Budget Watchdog AF, TCS President Steve Ellis.

Steve Ellis (00:40):

Welcome to All American Taxpayers Seeking Common Sense. You’ve made it to the right place. For 30 years, TCS, that’s Taxpayers for Common Sense, has served as an independent nonpartisan budget watchdog group based in Washington, DC. We believe in fiscal policy for America that is based on facts. We believe in transparency and accountability because no matter where you are in the political spectrum, no one wants to see their tax dollars wasted. Today, beef. Pound of regular ground beef averaged $6.89 in July, highest in history. And the administration moved three times in eight days, a 300,000 ton import quota announced, a proclamation signed, and then a social media post promising to let ranchers process their own meat. The objections came from inside the president’s own party. More than a dozen Republican senators, 21 House Republicans voiced concerns. So we went to the paperwork. We pulled out every executive order we could find touching agriculture and food prices since January of last year from the Federal Register and the White House site. So if something never published, we wouldn’t have it. 16 presidential actions, four more taken by agencies. None of them required a new vote in Congress. Here to walk us through it is our Director of Research and Policy and Mr. Agriculture himself, Josh Sewell. Josh, welcome back.

Josh Sewell (01:59):

It’s good to be here.

Steve Ellis (02:00):

Josh, most people hear executive order and think that covers everything a president signs. It doesn’t. What’s the difference between an executive order, a proclamation, an agency rule, and a post on social media, and which of those actually carries the force of law?

Josh Sewell (02:15):

So three of those are official documents and one is not. First, an agency rule. That’s basically a regulation by an agency, often required as part of a law. It’s the actual implementation. There’s a whole process that usually requires a public comment period and the rule affects the public. Now, an executive order is similar, but it’s actually directed at the executive branch agencies themselves.

Steve Ellis (02:41):

So it’s not a direct regulation of taxpayers or businesses?

Josh Sewell (02:45):

Correct. It regulates federal agency behavior, which can indirectly regulate actions for the public.

Steve Ellis (02:52):

Both of these carry the force of law, yes?

Josh Sewell (02:55):

Yes, as long as they are constitutional. So agency rules and executive orders cannot violate federal law, and more importantly, cannot trample on the Constitution, either the separation of powers or the Bill of Rights. Importantly, agency rules can be rewritten, but again, it has a formal process and you have to follow the law. But executive orders, they can be reversed with the stroke of a pen because it’s basically an internal management memo that ultimately leads to whipsawing in public policy.

Steve Ellis (03:26):

Right. As you went from an EO in Trump 1.0 to EOs in Biden to EOs in Trump 2.0.

Josh Sewell (03:35):

Exactly.

Steve Ellis (03:36):

So what about the other two, Josh? Proclamations and posts on social media?

Josh Sewell (03:41):

Presidential proclamations are usually formal recognitions or honors. So it carries no weight of law. So last week we saw a presidential proclamation honoring the life of Dolly Parton. That didn’t undo the cosmic injustice of having Dolly Parton taken from the earth, just as the proclamation from three weeks ago, I think it was now, that August 6th is National Purple Heart Day did not bestow a Purple Heart on any individual.

Steve Ellis (04:06):

Leaving Dolly aside, you said usually?

Josh Sewell (04:10):

Yeah. So proclamations, they can have legal ramifications when they are drawing on statutory authority, that is authority from Congress. And the two areas that matter for us as taxpayers really are the ability for the executive agency to declare emergencies, especially related to natural disasters and national security or to enforce trade law.

Steve Ellis (04:32):

So that leaves us with social media posts. Where do these land in the hierarchy of presidential actions?

Josh Sewell (04:39):

They are by far the most prolific, but least potent. So there is no force of law from a presidential Truth Social post, at least not yet. Now it is a window into future policy, perhaps, but I’m not going to try and predict future presidential actions based on presidential posts. It seems a fool’s game.

Steve Ellis (04:58):

Well, especially since President Trump can bash out 20 Truth Social posts in nothing flat. All right, so let’s stick to what we can know. Because the beef actions are proclamations under Section 404 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, a delegation of trade authority Congress wrote into law. And Proclamation 11059 is not a tariff repeal. Instead, it allows companies to import beef in excess of an existing quota without being charged a higher tariff.

Josh Sewell (05:31):

Right. But the Truth Social post about allowing farmers to slaughter and sell their own cattle directly to consumers has no legal instrument behind it at all. So you have to make this distinction between proclamations that have a force, executive orders, and things that are just the president putting out his opinion.

Steve Ellis (05:49):

Right. And you can imagine if a cattleman tried to act on that, they might run afoul of governmental health authorities and such. So it behooves them, no pun intended, to pay attention to that small distinction or major distinction. All right, Josh, let’s talk about why beef is actually expensive. Farm Bureau reads the July cattle report as the smallest July herd on record going back to 1973 and the ninth straight annual decline in the calf crop. And from 2004 to 2023, we imported an average of 1.17 million head of cattle a year from Mexico. That border’s been mostly closed since May of 2025 because of screwworm. So this year’s projection is 150,000 to 250,000 head. That shortfall dwarfs every quota in these proclamations. So does importing beef touch the actual problem?

Josh Sewell (06:47):

Simple answer, no, because this is another example of Washington looking for a quick fix to a structural challenge, and it’s a structural challenge mostly caused by Washington.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller (06:59):

I am paying as a cattleman the highest prices for my three top inputs, high feed because of the drought, high diesel prices because of the Strait of Hormuz and the highest fertilizer prices I’ve ever paid, also because of the Strait of Hormuz. So we’re not on easy times and bringing in foreign beef is complicating the problem.

Steve Ellis (07:20):

That’s Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller on Bloomberg on August 27th, tying his costs to the Strait of Hormuz. Some of that chain holds and some has unwound. Crude came back down from its initial spike. Natural gas here is cheaper than before the war. Retail fertilizer has fallen four straight weeks, but diesel didn’t come down. $5.65 a gallon, up more than 50% in a year. And the farm share of the retail beef dollar slipped to 51% this July from 53% last July. Costs up and a smaller slice of the retail dollar. Where’s the money going?

Josh Sewell (07:58):

It’s to the middlemen. So in cattle, it’s the handful of companies that slaughter the cattle, frankly. This is actually an issue that’s been building for decades and increasing the amount of imported beef, commissioner’s right, it will not send a single additional dollar to any cattlemen. It actually, in reality, depressed the prices of cattle futures on the market, which ultimately led to lower incomes for farmers and ranchers.

Steve Ellis (08:23):

So let’s talk about direct subsidies, that is subsidies to farmers. As of USDA’s own count in April, $39.1 billion in farm subsidies have gone to farmers since January of last year. The biggest piece is $12 billion in farmer bridge payments announced last December. No executive order, no appropriation, no vote. How is this possible and does it help?

Josh Sewell (08:50):

Well, that program was done under Section 5 of the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, the Triple C.

Steve Ellis (08:57):

Yes, something near and dear to your heart. Well, not dear, but certainly ever present, your white whale of ag policy.

Josh Sewell (09:05):

Yes. So the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, that new program falls in that agency regulation bucket of presidential action. So Congress gave the USDA authority to take actions that raise prices for farm products by promoting consumption, increasing exports, or “stabilizing” incomes. And that authority, which was delegated back in 1948, is what the USDA is using.

Steve Ellis (09:31):

How is it funded, Josh? I mean, you can’t just conjure funding from thin air.

Josh Sewell (09:36):

Yeah, it’s not a meme coin. So the Triple C, it has a $30 billion line of credit with Treasury. So the Secretary of Agriculture can draw on that credit to fund almost any program that she wants, as long as it helps agriculture. And she created the FBA as a supposedly temporary program to carry farmers to October of this year when higher payments from farm bill programs are expected to take effect. Programs that were made more expensive from H.R. 1, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.

Steve Ellis (10:07):

So we’re talking cattle. How many cattle ranchers will benefit from this CCC spending?

Josh Sewell (10:13):

None. Yeah, again, none. So that $11 billion of the 12 is actually for row crops, things like corn, cotton, wheat, and rice. And there’s one billion of it is going to so-called specialty crops, which technically could go to livestock, but the way they’re drawing it out, it’s actually going to go to specialty crops, which are the things we eat. So almonds, fresh fruit, vegetables, those folks, ones who don’t have commodity programs, but it’s not going to cattle or hogs or chickens.

Steve Ellis (10:40):

So in addition to all of this, Ag Secretary Rollins asked Senate appropriators in July for more than $11 billion in emergency farm aid. She said, “We have to do these supplementals and these bridge payments for these farmers to survive.” It hasn’t passed. Senate Agriculture couldn’t move a farm bill out of committee, so Congress is stuck and the CCC checkbook is sitting there requiring no vote. What does that structure make possible this fall?

Josh Sewell (11:07):

Some very fiscally irresponsible decisions. So that supplemental appropriations bill she’s requested could be tacked onto a lame duck spending bill. It could be tacked onto anything that Congress does in the last couple months of this year. And the president could respond to political pressure and his own interest and tap the Triple C for a new program aimed at folks raising cattle. That’s within their purview. Certainly that’s the authority they have. And Congress might even raise that Triple C cap of $30 billion to as much as $90 billion as some lawmakers have proposed.

Steve Ellis (11:41):

But none of that actually undoes consolidation or reduce the cost of feed or fertilizer, opens up new economically sustainable markets.

Josh Sewell (11:50):

No, none of it touches the actual problem. And I think that’s the issue here. None of it is also permanent. Triple C programs, executive orders, presidential proclamations, those things are all ephemeral. A farm economy that works for farmers, ranchers, and consumers, one where beef is affordable for consumers and one where folks can actually make a living as a farmer and rancher, that’s only going to come from hard work, tough compromise, and a focus on opportunity in federal policy, not subsidies. And it’s the opposite of what we’re getting.

Steve Ellis (12:21):

Josh, to be clear here, farmers, they don’t want these handouts. The cattlemen, they don’t want these handouts, right? They would rather make their money the honest, regular way. Am I right?

Josh Sewell (12:30):

Absolutely. I’ve yet to meet a farmer, rancher, or specialty crop grower, a conventional grower, an organic grower, a non-organic grower who says, “I want more federal intervention in my markets.” Who says, “I want to make my money from mandates, not from selling my products.” And I think that’s the real challenge that we have in agriculture policy in general, but also right now is we don’t have, despite the Triple C, despite supplemental aid, we don’t have an unlimited checkbook. We have $40 trillion in debt as a country and our solutions moving forward are not going to be to simply spend more money. The solution is going to be in creating the environment that allows people to prosper on their own. And so we don’t need to help cattlemen by throwing more cash at a problem that’s been around for a long time. We need to have our lawmakers sit down and figure out what is actually the real obstacle here and how has the federal government been part of the problem and what can we do different to be part of the solution?

Steve Ellis (13:22):

Josh Sewell, Mr. Agriculture, thank you as always. And there you have it podcast listeners. Beef is expensive, farm programs are costly, and cattlemen are under strain. Foreign beef doesn’t fix any of that. 16 presidential actions, four agency actions, billions of dollars in new farm subsidies, and not one needed a new vote in Congress. That’s not a story about beef, that’s a story about who decides and what needs to change. This is the frequency. Mark it on your dial, subscribe and share, and know this, Taxpayers for Common Sense has your back, America. We read the bills, we monitor the earmarks, and we highlight the wasteful programs that poorly spend your money and shift long-term risk to taxpayers. We’ll be back with a new episode soon. I hope you’ll meet us right here to learn more.