
Senator Mike Rounds on Trump's Imported Beef Announcement
Takeaways Senator Mike Rounds calls President Trump's plan to import 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef "disappointing," warning it sends the wrong signal to a cattle market that has finally started rewarding producers after the smallest U.S. cow herd in 70 years. Rounds breaks down the RANC Act, a bipartisan bill with Senator Amy Klobuchar that would pay landowners the county average rental rate to put marginal cropland back into grass for 10 to 15 years, capped at 20 million acres nationwide, in an effort to rebuild the national cow herd. Mandatory country of origin labeling finally has a real path forward. Rounds confirms Senator Thune got it included in the farm bill moving through the Senate Agriculture Committee, more than a decade after producers first started pushing for it. In this special episode of the "Heart of Rural America," host Amanda Radke sits down with Senator Mike Rounds at the Casey Tibbs Heritage Center in Fort Pierre, South Dakota, right after a one hour roundtable discussion with cattle producers from across the state. The conversation centers on President Trump's surprise announcement to buy 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef, and Rounds does not mince words about it, calling it disappointing and warning that it undercuts an America First message at the exact moment cow-calf operators are finally turning a profit. Rounds and Radke dig into why beef prices are up in the first place: the American cow herd is the smallest it has been in 70 years, and rebuilding it means ranchers have to hold back heifers instead of selling them, a multi-year commitment with no fast fix. That leads into a detailed breakdown of the Ranch Act, Rounds' bipartisan proposal with Senator Amy Klobuchar to pay landowners to convert marginal cropland back into grass for 10 to 15 years, with a second payment available from whoever grazes the land. The two also cover the recent reopening of the Mexico border to cattle imports, packer consolidation, and the progress mandatory country of origin labeling has made inside the farm bill after more than a decade of advocacy. Presented by Bid On Beef | CK6 Consulting Services Inc. | CK6 Source | Real Tuff Livestock Equipment | Ambrook | Redmond Real Salt | All American Angus Beef | Radke Land & Cattle Use code RADKE for $10 off your next All American Angus Beef order at www.BidOnBeef.com Save on Redmond Real Salt with code RADKE at https://shop.redmondagriculture.com/ Try a one-month trial with Ambrook for free here: ambrook.com/radke Check out Amanda's agricultural children's books here: https://amandaradke.com/collections/amandas-books Learn more about Bulletproofing Your Direct-To-Consumer Beef Enterprise: https://amandaradke.com/products/bulletproof-your-beef-business Report an issue with the USDA Lawfare portal: https://www.usda.gov/lawfare Join the property rights fight at American Land & Legacy. at www.americanlandandlegacy.org















