Ranchers get raw deal from price manipulation
Montana is a rural state. Yes, we have a few big cities, but it’s mostly small towns and rural communities that make up Montana.
We continue to have way more cows than people. It has narrowed from the days when there were more than two cows per person. In 2024, there were only 2.12 million cattle compared to 1.14 million people. We, people, are catching up.
It is probably due to that damnable popular TV series “Yellowstone.” Think about that — a series about cattle brought in more people than cattle to the Big Sky state.
Nonetheless, you would think ranchers and stockmen would be delighted with the significant number of cows in the Treasure State, as beef prices are at an all-time high. But they’re not.
Montana ranchers, stockmen and farmers remain strong supporters of President Trump, even though he has announced plans to allow four times the usual quota for American purchases of Argentine beef as part of an effort to lower beef prices. Argentina is the same country that is undercutting American farmers by significantly increasing soybean exports to China. Yet, it is Argentina that the Trump administration has rewarded with a $40 billion bailout package, while offering farmers only a $12 billion bailout. Doesn’t sound much like America First, does it?
Trump lectures ranchers: “The cattle ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% tariff on Brazil.”
But Argentina is a different story.
Recent reports from late 2025 confirm a significant trade imbalance: the U.S. imported over $800 million in Argentine beef while exporting only about $7 million to Argentina over the preceding five years. Besides concerns about market disruption, there are biosecurity risks such as foot-and-mouth disease.
The Montana Stockgrowers Association has strongly encouraged the administration not to intervene in the domestic beef market, as such intervention could have a potentially devastating effect on Montana cattle ranchers. These actions destabilize an already volatile market and will negatively impact America’s cattle producers.
Cattle ranchers operate in one of the most transparent and competitive markets in the world. Trump’s manipulation of beef prices undermines the principles of fair trade and free enterprise that have long sustained rural economies.
Having worked for many Montana ranchers’ families in my youth, I can personally attest to their hardworking ethics and love of Montana. It is damnable hard work — while being damnable enjoyable.
It is not just ranchers and stockmen getting hurt. U.S. agricultural exports to China have dropped by more than $6.8 billion since Trump took office — a 73% decline, most notably in soybeans. Montana farmers experienced a much lower drop in exports to China, 19%, than our neighbors in North Dakota, which saw its exports to China plunge by 85%. But any loss in these markets hurts, as it took decades of effort to build the infrastructure and negotiate trade opportunities to gain entry into these overseas markets.
With escalating costs, low crop prices and the trade war, economists project that farmers could incur over $40 billion in losses on their 2025–26 crops, leading to a surge in farm bankruptcies. The first half of 2025 bankruptcies have already exceeded the total for all of 2024. One can only wonder what the second half of 2025 will bring.
Although President Trump continues to do stockmen, ranchers and farmers wrong, it appears they will continue to support him — provided he promises to keep transgender cows out of their herds.
Tom Muri is a fifth generation Montanan and a retired military JAG officer.