Salatin Calls Trump’s Meat-Processing Order a “Nothing Burger”
By Joel Salatin for the Brownstone Institute
Farmer and author Joel Salatin, writing for the Brownstone Institute, sharply criticizes President Trump’s new executive order on meat processing, arguing that much of what the administration is presenting as deregulation either already exists or fails to address the central problem: small farmers’ ability to process animals locally and legally sell that meat to customers.
Salatin argues that the more durable solution would be passage of Rep. Thomas Massie’s bipartisan PRIME Act, rather than an executive order that a future administration could reverse.
Salatin also connects the move to the political backlash over Trump’s decision to allow an additional 300,000 metric tons of imported lean beef trimmings at the lower in-quota tariff rate for 90 days. He portrays the processing order as an attempt to repair relations with ranchers while warning that large meatpackers could ultimately shape the resulting regulations to their advantage.
Be assured that this whole thing has been conceived as an olive branch after the 300,000 metric ton below-market (subsidized?) tariff-free import of ground beef product (what’s with the “product?”) for 90 days, coinciding with the midterm elections.
Reuters reports that U.S. farm and ranch groups strongly opposed the expanded beef imports, while the White House says the processing order is intended to increase competition, support smaller processors and expand interstate market access.
One important caveat: Salatin’s opening characterization is somewhat misleading. The executive order, signed September 4, does not merely give farmers the already-existing right to butcher animals for their own consumption. Its stated objective explicitly includes making it easier to “butcher, process, package, and sell” meat and directs USDA to examine statutory barriers preventing state-inspected and custom-exempt meat from entering interstate commerce.
Whether those directives produce meaningful new freedom is a separate question — and that is where Salatin’s criticism is strongest.
Read more:
