--- title: Trump Announces a Tariff Deal Aimed at Lowering Beef Prices description: The President is expected to sign an Executive Order regarding the deal within the next couple of weeks. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/beef-prices-trump-deal-tariffs/ author: Chantelle Lee article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-08-21T19:28:12.602Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-21T19:28:12.889Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Announces a Tariff Deal Aimed at Lowering Beef Prices og:description: The President is expected to sign an Executive Order regarding the deal within the next couple of weeks. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/beef-prices-trump-deal-tariffs/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe4a63c49d02939c/6a88a30cd6c10712a13445e4/Trump-Beef-Deal.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Trump-Beef-Deal.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Announces a Tariff Deal Aimed at Lowering Beef Prices twitter:description: The President is expected to sign an Executive Order regarding the deal within the next couple of weeks. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe4a63c49d02939c/6a88a30cd6c10712a13445e4/Trump-Beef-Deal.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # With Beef Costs Skyrocketing, Trump Announces a Tariff Deal Aimed at Lowering Prices > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Chantelle Lee](https://time.com/author/chantelle-lee/) ## Chantelle Lee Reporter Aug 21, 2026 7:28 PM UTC  President Donald Trump takes a question from reporters during an event in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 10, 2026. President Donald Trump takes a question from reporters during an event in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 10, 2026. Anna Moneymaker—Getty Images by [Chantelle Lee](https://time.com/author/chantelle-lee/) ## Chantelle Lee Reporter Aug 21, 2026 7:28 PM UTC President [Donald Trump](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/donald-trump/) announced on Friday that he has coordinated a new deal to lower [beef prices](https://time.com/7304845/ground-beef-prices-record-highs-united-states-reasons-outlook/) in the U.S. “Today, I concluded a deal to substantially lower the price of ground beef for working American families,” he said in a [Truth Social post](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117133120342300539). “For the next 90 days, the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out of quota tariff. We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.” “This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again,” he continued. An “out of quota tariff” is a higher tariff that is triggered if the amount of a product imported into the U.S. exceeds a certain quantity. **Read More:** [_Why Ground Beef Prices Are Hitting Record-Highs in the U.S._](https://time.com/7304845/ground-beef-prices-record-highs-united-states-reasons-outlook/) It’s unclear who the deal is with or which countries will be importing the beef into the U.S. A White House official told TIME that Trump secured an agreement with foreign beef exporters to sell beef at a 25% discount, which will be passed on to American consumers, in exchange for Trump lifting the out of quota tariff on lean beef trimmings that will be used for ground beef production. The White House official added that the President plans to sign an Executive Order regarding the deal within the next couple of weeks. Both Trump and the White House official cited the soaring price of beef as the motivation behind the new deal. Last month, the average price of ground beef for American consumers was about $6.885 per pound—a jump of roughly 57% from just five years earlier, according to data shared by the [Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000703112). The price of uncooked ground beef went up by 9% in July, compared to the same time last year, according to data released by the [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf) last month. Beef prices have skyrocketed in large part because of supply shortages: American cattle herd sizes are at a low not seen in years, even as consumer demand for beef remains high in the country. The [American Farm Bureau Federation](https://www.fb.org/intel/markets/july-cattle-report-signals-stabilizing-cattle-herd) reported last month that, while the total cattle inventory went up a bit at the start of July for the first in eight years, the beef cow herd dropped to 28.5 million head, decreasing by about 1% compared to the same time last year, making it the “smallest July inventory on record,” with data dating back to 1973\. Experts [attribute](https://time.com/7304845/ground-beef-prices-record-highs-united-states-reasons-outlook/) the pressure on herds largely to droughts driven by climate change. The deal that Trump announced on Friday isn’t the first time his Administration has made efforts to try and address the soaring price of beef for consumers. The President also signed an [Executive Order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/ensuring-affordable-beef-for-the-american-consumer/) earlier this year aimed at increasing the amount of lean beef trimmings imported from Argentina by 80,000 metric tons per year. Experts, however, cast doubt on whether boosting beef imports from Argentina will be effective at lowering the cost on Americans, [saying](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-beef-trade-argentina-executive-order/) that the boost in imports would make up too small a portion of the overall supply in the U.S. to have a significant impact. And the cattle industry has objected to such efforts in the past, expressing concerns that those moves would undermine producers within the U.S. Colin Woodall—the CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a trade association for cattle farmers and ranchers—said in a [statement](https://www.ncba.org/news-media/news/details/50285/ncba-statement-on-president-trumps-truth-social-post) on Friday that he was “disappointed” by Trump’s announcement. “While America’s cattle producers share the goal of keeping groceries affordable for consumers, flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd,” Woodall said. “We are already working to rebuild after years of ongoing drought, high input costs and other challenges that have reduced U.S. cattle numbers. Today’s announcement and other market interventions throw cold water on the prospect of herd expansion and sacrifices long-term stability for short term messaging.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/beef-prices-trump-deal-tariffs/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/beef-prices-trump-deal-tariffs/"},"headline":"With Beef Costs Skyrocketing, Trump Announces a Tariff Deal Aimed at Lowering Prices","datePublished":"2026-08-21T19:28:12.602Z","dateModified":"2026-08-21T19:28:12.889Z","description":"The President is expected to sign an Executive Order regarding the deal within the next couple of weeks.","url":"https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/beef-prices-trump-deal-tariffs/","keywords":["Trump Administration","News Desk"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe4a63c49d02939c/6a88a30cd6c10712a13445e4/Trump-Beef-Deal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Chantelle Lee","jobTitle":"Reporter","url":"https://time.com/author/chantelle-lee/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe4a63c49d02939c/6a88a30cd6c10712a13445e4/Trump-Beef-Deal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Trump-Beef-Deal.jpg","caption":"","creditText":"Anna Moneymaker—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/trump-administration/","name":"Trump Administration"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/beef-prices-trump-deal-tariffs/","name":"With Beef Costs Skyrocketing, Trump Announces a Tariff Deal Aimed at Lowering Prices"}}]}] ```