The Republican Playbook for Saving the American Rancher

In this The American Conservative article, Charles Benoit argues that saving independent American ranchers requires pairing antitrust action against dominant meatpackers with tariff protection against foreign imports.

• The article says the Trump administration is investigating the “Big Four” meatpackers, which reportedly control more than 85 percent of the U.S. beef processing market.
• Benoit argues that breaking up meatpacking concentration is necessary but not sufficient because foreign imports could still undermine domestic ranchers.
• The piece frames tariffs and antitrust as complementary tools, claiming ranchers need both market competition and protection from import pressure.
• The article cites a shrinking U.S. cattle herd, disappearing beef-cattle operations, and the collapse of the cash market as evidence that independent ranching is in danger.
• Benoit compares today’s meatpacking giants to the late-19th-century “Beef Trust,” arguing that similar market concentration has returned.
• The article praises the Republican Congress of 1921 for combining the Packers and Stockyards Act with tariff protections, saying that approach reduced packer concentration for decades.
• Benoit criticizes later free-trade and deregulatory shifts, including weakened tariff protections and the end of the 1920 meatpacking consent decree.
• The piece calls for a modern structural remedy against the Big Four, stronger statutory limits on captive supply and vertical integration, and scrutiny of foreign ownership.
• Benoit also urges the administration to use Section 232 authority to phase in tariff protection for cattle, beef, sheep, and lamb.
• The article concludes that Trump and Congress should permanently codify both antitrust and tariff protections or risk the disappearance of independent American ranching.

Read the full story: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-republican-playbook-for-saving-the-american-rancher/