You are subsidizing Bessent and Caputo’s hedge funds friends.
Unless you’re a dictator who has his whole life to make any necessary changes, generally a politician has a fairly short window to try and make change, due to term limits, the fickle support of the general public, and who all they elect into office with you.
The right answer is to make slow, gradual changes that move things back in the right direction - even if that will easily in an underwhelming response by the electorate. The problem is that the sort of person who would want to do it that way is also the sort of person who generally can’t get elected by a popular vote among the people.
Any populist leader - left or right - is generally going to be fairly poor.
I also helps if you understand politics and the necessary compromises it implies, something that both shit-persons have trouble with.
From the linked Newsweek article:
"We would buy some beef from Argentina,” Trump told reporters
The US government itself is going to purchase (and distribute) beef? Or rather facilitate commercial US meat packers to source/import? Any chance some shipments of Brazillian beef “slips through” the protocols for expedience?
largely because screwworm outbreaks have weakened already diminished (US) cattle herds.
Now if a country was considering allowing the importing of US beef, you probably won’t introduce screwworm [an example that if an omnipotent God created all life for their divine purpose, he is a sick & evil motherfucker] from chilled processed beef carcasses alone, rather than from live cattle, hides and other offal, but why would you take the risk? No US meat processor is going to guarantee their product against that risk.
Then you get the full agro-socialist playbook of protectionism from the very same guys whose corporate economic model is SovCit independence plus regular Federal pay checks.
"high prices are “the fault of politicians who have allowed BRICS-aligned entities to dominate the meat industry, that participate in price fixing…”
So BRICS etc are conspiring to artificially inflate prices for beef for the US consumer? Whilst at very same time.
" … allowing these (BRICS-aligned) entities to flood the market with cheaper, lower-quality imports."
All the while watching the demographics of their customer base desert them in terms of supply, price and preference. Whither “Where’s the beef?”.
beyond discouraging shoppers from purchasing beef, rising prices have strengthened the case for plant-based proteins. Some 58 percent of those polled said that beef’s current costs were an either somewhat or very convincing reason to choose a nonmeat alternative, rising to 60 percent among Gen Zers surveyed.
Making some sort of business case that without an export market for US soyabeans, in the spirit of rampant nationalism, the US government should acquire the entire crop and use TVP to keep the price of US beef affordable. Tofu to feed the way to MAGA.
Why did you insert “US” into that quote? Screwworms are not affecting US cattle.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/cattle/ticks/screwworm
On August 1, CDC notified USDA of a case of New World Screwworm (NWS) in a traveler returning from Central America. There have been no detections in U.S. livestock , and the risk to domestic animals and wildlife remains low . There is no evidence of further exposure beyond this individual case.
Further, on Wikipedia:
Clearly, the article is talking about herds in South America being diminished, not the US.
The exact quote from Newslink is:
The price of beef, alongside other everyday essentials, has soared this year largely because screwworm outbreaks have weakened already diminished cattle herds.
The price rises referred to are US.
The diminished herds referred to are US.
The driving cause referenced is ambiguous.
Concur that the northward advance of screwworm has been held in check for some time by an extensive baiting program in Central America by the US.
But on 25th July:
And on Oct 20th:
Per your own CBS source:
A flesh-eating parasite that once ravaged Texas livestock is creeping back—and the state is stepping in to stop it.
I don’t know how it’s reducing American herds when it has been eradicated in the US, and efforts are being made to keep it from coming back. The cause is not from screwworm outbreaks, because they are not occurring in the US. The source you initially misquoted was saying that screwworm outbreaks are responsible for scarcity of beef in general, driving up the price due to scarcity. This being the SDMB, I felt obligated to push back against misinformation.
Granted, US herd sizes are reduced. That is true. This is from early last year:
Note that while that data is from early 2024, that is because reports on cattle size are reported semi-anually by the USDA, so a new report won’t be until 2026.
The USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) provides information on cattle inventory in its semi-annual Cattle reports.
The reason presented for the small herd size is attributed to higher input costs (things like feed for the cattle) which I assume is due to inflation and lingering supply chain disruptions from the pandemic, and climate change causing a drought. Per the Farm Bureau article:
With drought and high input costs compelling farmers to market a higher-than-normal percentage of female cattle, the most recent cattle inventory dropped to lows not seen in decades.
Screwworm is not a part of the reduction in US herd sizes, though again I’m sure it’s affecting the total herd size in the Americas, which drives up prices.