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President Donald Trump on Friday afternoon called on the Justice Department to investigate meat-packing companies, accusing them of illegally driving up beef prices.
“I have asked the DOJ to immediately begin an investigation into the Meat Packing Companies who are driving up the price of Beef through Illicit Collusion, Price Fixing, and Price Manipulation,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
“We will always protect our American Ranchers, and they are being blamed for what is being done by Majority Foreign Owned Meat Packers, who artificially inflate prices, and jeopardize the security of our Nation’s food supply,” he wrote.
Trump has drawn the ire of ranchers with calls to lower beef prices and a decision to allow increased imports of Argentine beef. Live- and feeder-cattle futures have fallen sharply since late last month, with the move tied in part to uncertainty around the potential for other measures aimed at bringing down beef prices.
Concentration in the meat-packing industry, meanwhile, has long been a sore point for ranchers.
Keep an eye on the consumer
The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index for November fell Friday to 50.3, down sharply from 53.6 a month earlier and not far off an all-time low. Weakness in survey-based measures of consumer confidence often don’t translate into weaker spending, but bear watching. Signs that middle-income consumers are beginning to pull back on spending could prove to be a headwind for ag commodity markets.
The market remains starved of official data due to the government shutdown, which is a weight on sentiment itself. But other data continues to point to a weakening labor market. Layoffs last month were up 183% from September and 175% from October 2024, global outplacement and executive-coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported Thursday.
Upcoming holiday spending will offer a test. The National Retail Federation expects it to hold up. The NRF forecast retail sales in November and December to grow between 3.7% and 4.2% over 2024, which would translate into total spending between $1.01 trillion and $1.02 trillion, after growth last year of 4.2% that took spending to $976.1 billion.
“American consumers may be cautious in sentiment, yet remain fundamentally strong and continue to drive U.S. economic activity,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said.