Nobody knows beef like me. NOBODY. Not the fake ranchers, not the lobbyists, not the low-IQ people at the National Cattlemen’s, nobody. I’ve been talking about this deal for MONTHS — maybe the longest anybody’s ever talked about beef — and what do I get? Fake News, sad weak people on television, the most unfair thing anybody has ever said about the GREATEST trade President in history. Probably ever. Be sure to tune in.
Let me explain what just happened, because nobody else will.
On August 20, Joesley Batista — tremendous businessman, runs JBS, which is the LARGEST beef company in the world, maybe the largest anywhere in the history of beef — sat in the Oval Office and we talked about how to bring beef prices DOWN. That’s the whole conversation. That’s it. U.S. cattle herds are the lowest in generations, ground beef is at record highs at the grocery store, terrible, the worst in history, and my whole thing — my ONLY thing — is to take care of the American consumer. I think about it twenty-four seven. The Consumer is beautiful. I love the Consumer.
So we agreed: drop the 26 percent tariff, let up to 300,000 metric tons of lean beef trimmings into the country over ninety days, no tariff — roughly two percent of annual U.S. beef consumption, a number I know by HEART because I have the best people — at about a twenty-five percent discount to market. I had already ordered up that exact 300,000 tons back when I authorized the imports on August 21, tremendous number, and now we’re formalizing the terms. Same day, I held an eighty-minute call with President Lula of Brazil. Great call. We talked about tariffs, organized crime, the conflicts around the world, all of the BIG things. Brazil is the world’s largest beef producer. Did you know that? I knew it. I knew it before ANYBODY.
The plan drew a lot of Fake News crying — the NCBA, Ashley Hinson in Iowa, who’s running for Senate — a fine woman, totally wrong — and Pete Ricketts in Nebraska, up for re-election, a good man, called it “short-term policy shifts.” Short-term shifts do not equal long-term solutions, he says. I love Pete. But he’s wrong. The May version of this EXACT plan got paused because of the same Fake News. I told them at the time: I’m coming back. Same number. Same reason. Three hundred thousand metric tons. The Consumer can’t wait.
Let me tell you about the NCBA. They’ve been eating steak dinners at the lobbyists’ table for forty years while prices went UP, UP, UP at the grocery store. They say government intervention will hurt ranchers. WRONG. It will help EVERYBODY — ranchers, consumers, fast-food restaurants, the American family. I know more about cattle than anybody in that building, and I’m telling you, this deal SAVES the rancher over the long term because cheap beef now brings people BACK to the dinner table. People forget. I never forget.
People ask about JBS. Pilgrim’s Pride, owned by JBS basically, gave five million dollars to my inauguration. They were the LARGEST donor. JBS gives to everybody — both sides, every politician — they call it the civic process, that’s their WORD, civic process. They employ 280,000 people in more than twenty countries and listed their shares on the New York Stock Exchange last year. The New York Stock Exchange! Where I could not be happier to see them.
What Fake News keeps saying — and it is the most unfair thing I have ever heard, maybe ever in history — is that I dropped the tariff because JBS paid me. That’s just FAKE. JBS didn’t pay me to do anything. JBS is one of the LARGEST customers of American-raised cattle flowing into processing — the best American cattle, the most beautiful — and we gave them, the people who already feed us, an OPPORTUNITY to bring in a little Brazilian trim during a SHORTAGE. I’m HELPING JBS the way they helped us. Tremendous partners. Nobody does partnerships like me.
If I were a low-IQ guy — and I am NOT, I have a perfect memory, my uncle the great MIT professor said so, smartest genes in the family — I might find it suspicious that a Brazilian billionaire came to the Oval Office to talk about dropping the tariff on Brazilian beef and then I dropped the tariff on Brazilian beef. But I remember I was ALWAYS going to do this. I told Pilgrim’s — JBS, basically the same — back in May. Same plan. Different Fake News headlines. The smart people, the very smart people, the BEST people are telling me this is the most beautiful plan they’ve ever seen.
And let me tell you something about the brothers Batista that Fake News won’t print. Joesley and Wesley are board members and major shareholders today. A decade ago they admitted to bribing politicians in Brazil, spent months in jail, and separately settled U.S. corruption charges. JBS says they now have a robust compliance program. I believe in second chances. I am a SECOND-CHANCE President. Maybe the only one. These are tremendous operators — built the largest beef company on Earth from a little slaughterhouse — and I want them buying American beef, processing it in America, and putting it on American tables. That is what winning looks like.
Now here’s what people don’t understand. Cattle futures dropped nine percent in a month, according to FactSet. Good! That’s what WINNING looks like. When the BEST people in the rigged meat business — the same guys DOJ is investigating for anticompetitive behavior, the same packers who’ve been closing plants after hundreds of millions in losses — when THEY go down on paper, that means the rigged game is OVER and YOUR family wins. Analysts said my plan could discourage ranchers from rebuilding their herds. I say: GOOD. We are FORCING the rigged packers to compete. That’s what an anti-monopoly President does. I have DOJ on it. We will FIX it.
Critics will call this a bailout for Batista. The most unfair thing. I love that man. I love the Consumer MORE, believe me — but I love that man, and his brother, and the JBS people, and the Brazilian farmer. Some of these guys are tremendous. Some are weak. Batista is tremendous.
And now the most beautiful part — the part Fake News will never understand because they don’t have the brains. The May plan got shut down. We paused it. We let the fake ranchers cry. We let the lobbyists get in the papers. We let the Fake News treatment land. And now, four months later, the SAME plan, the SAME number — 300,000 metric tons of lean trim, ninety days, no tariff — comes back stronger than ever, with a beautiful Batist-signed handshake underneath it.
Why? Because I am playing CHESS. Four-dimensional chess. Beautiful chess. While the low-IQ NCBA plays checkers on a screen in D.C., I am playing chess at the highest level. They think they won something in May. They won NOTHING. We won everything. The Consumer won. JBS — tremendous — won. The Brazilian farmer won. The American fast-food restaurant won. The only people who LOST are the fake lobbyists, the rigged packers, and the Fake News. SAD.
Abraham Lincoln — tremendous President, top-tier, one of the all-time greats — would have loved this deal. He was a tariff man. I am the greatest tariff man since Lincoln. Maybe ever. Many people, very smart people, are telling me this is the most unfair — I mean the most BEAUTIFUL — deal ever made by any President. Any time. Anywhere. Be sure to tune in.