00:00The U.S. is reopening the border to Mexico. Not for people, for cattle. And those cattle may have
00:05a flesh-eating parasite. Here's what's happening. The U.S. imports young cattle from Mexico. They
00:11fatten up on American farms and eventually become American beef. That pipeline got shut off in May
00:162025 due to a screwworm outbreak, closing the border to Mexican cattle. Bad timing because our
00:22herd is the smallest in 75 years and beef is now the priciest it's ever been. So on August 24th,
00:28the U.S. reopened a single Arizona crossing to get those cattle flowing again. Ag Secretary
00:33Brooke Rollins added that the outbreak is controlled enough and that the cattle are safe to cross.
00:38A real fix, except the flow starts at 700 cattle a day, ramping upward to 1,300. Before the shutdown,
00:44Mexico sent roughly 1.2 million a year, making up about 3% of U.S. cattle supply. An economist
00:50told
00:50the AP those numbers mean this will barely touch prices. So, fix number two, Trump suspended beef
00:56tariffs, letting in 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef, promising it'll give space for the herd to
01:02grow. Nebraska Republican Deb Fischer wrote, we all want lower grocery prices, but we cannot do it at
01:09the expense of American producers. And the ranchers who actually grow that herd agree. The NCBA says
01:15flooding the market with cheap foreign beef makes it harder to rebuild. When asked about that pushback,
01:20Trump defended it. Well, we want to get the beef prices down, so we'll get them down a little bit,
01:25and that's what people want, that's what the voters want, and that's what I want. I love the ranchers,
01:30they've done a fantastic job, but they admit that we need a little help. But the cattlemen's group says
01:36the only real fix is a bigger American herd, and that takes years. So, are you buying that cheaper
01:41beef is on the way? Let us know in the comments.
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