An editorial in The Dallas Morning News is calling cattle ranchers “the first casualties of Trump's trade wars.”
Texas State University Journalism Professor Richard Parker noted several ways that Trump’s trade policy may hurt beef markets.
First, by backing out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Parker says that the Trump administration cut off access to the Japanese market that had been long-sought-after by ranchers on the High Plains. As a result, banks have raised the conditions for loan collateral for ranchers.
Then Trump threatened a 20 percent tax on Mexican goods entering the U.S. The Mexican president then canceled his visit to the White House, thus leading both countries to indicate they would likely re-write trade agreements between the countries.
Parker concluded his editorial by noting the irony that “the plains states . . . all helped put Trump in office. But the cows in pasture don't care about politics. And cowboys rightly don't care about irony, even if they are to be its first casualties.”