President Donald Trump said Friday he is moving to change federal regulations as part of a bid to allow farmers and ranchers to process their own meat — a decision that came just days after conservative political commentator Glenn Beck made an impassioned plea to the president during a radio interview.
Trump said the changes would alleviate a “tremendous problem” posed by four large companies that control a vast majority of the nation’s meat processing plants. Ranchers and farmers are required to use facilities that comply with the U.S. Agriculture Department’s federal regulations and inspection requirements.
“They make life miserable for our wonderful Farmers and Ranchers, and I can’t let that happen, can I?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “So, in order to break this powerful monopoly, with much of its ownership based outside of the U.S., I am authorizing legal documents to be drawn in order to allow Farmers and Ranchers to be given the right to PROCESS THEIR OWN FOOD. This should move quickly.”
The idea was first raised by Beck in a wide-ranging radio interview with Trump on Wednesday.
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“Help us! Help us!” Beck told Trump, urging him to look into the “meat processing cartel.” Beck, who owns a ranch, argued there were people who “want to build processing plants everywhere,” but the stringent regulations governing slaughterhouses “are killing” cattle farmers across the country.
Trump’s move also comes after his administration faced swift backlash from farm organizations, ranchers associations and Republicans over the weekend for its decision to allow the tariff-free import of 300,000 metric tons of beef in an attempt to lower costs for consumers.
Current regulations require slaughterhouse facilities to abide by various labeling, sanitation and building requirements, as well as butchering standards laid out by the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, according to the National Agricultural Law Center. Facilities must also allow continuous inspections by government personnel.
“So you’re saying with less regulation, you think the ranchers and farmers would do a very good job of processing the beef,” Trump asked Beck during their interview. The longtime conservative media stalwart replied, simply, “yes.”
“This is a very big thing you just told me,” Trump added later in the conversation. “You just gave me a very good idea.”
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