On November 7, 2025, President Donald Trump set off a political and economic firestorm by directing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the nation’s largest meatpacking companies for alleged collusion, price fixing, and price manipulation in the U.S. beef market. The move, announced through a White House executive order, zeroed in on the so-called “Big Four”—Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS USA, and National Beef Packing Company—who together process about 85% of America’s beef. It’s a sector where the stakes are high, not just for consumers facing sticker shock at the meat counter, but also for ranchers whose share of the beef dollar has steadily shrunk over decades.
Trump’s order came against a backdrop of soaring beef prices and mounting frustration in rural communities. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average retail price for ground chuck beef hit $6.33 per pound in September 2025—a jump of 13.5% from the year before. Yet, as the White House pointed out, cattle ranchers now receive just 37 cents of every beef dollar, a dramatic drop from the roughly 70 cents they took home in the 1970s. Meanwhile, the meatpacking giants have posted robust profits, fueling suspicions that something more than market forces is at play.
The Trump administration has framed the investigation as a matter of national and economic security, especially given that two of the Big Four—JBS and National Beef—are foreign-owned or have significant foreign control. “We will always protect our American Ranchers, and they are being blamed for what is being done by Majority Foreign Owned Meat Packers, who artificially inflate prices and jeopardize the security of our Nation's food supply,” Trump declared on Truth Social, as reported by Newsmax.
Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed that the probe was already underway, led by DOJ’s Antitrust Division under Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater and in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), headed by Secretary Brooke Rollins. The investigation, as FoodBev Media and Reuters reported, will use the Sherman Antitrust Act to compel document production, question executives, and seek hard evidence of collusion or coordinated action to suppress cattle prices or restrict processing capacity.
But the administration isn’t stopping at beef. On December 6, 2025, Trump signed a sweeping executive order titled “Addressing Security Risks From Price Fixing and Anti-Competitive Behavior in the Food Supply Chain.” The directive, as detailed by Newsmax, instructs both the DOJ and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create Food Supply Chain Security Task Forces. These units are tasked with investigating not just meatpacking, but also seed, fertilizer, and equipment industries for anti-competitive behavior and foreign influence—areas seen as especially vulnerable to collusion and market abuse. The order even authorizes new enforcement actions and regulatory approaches if wrongdoing is found, and calls for twice-yearly progress briefings to congressional leaders, though details of ongoing investigations must remain confidential.
The White House’s focus on market concentration is hardly new, but the urgency has grown as the “Big Four” have consolidated their grip. In 1980, the top four firms controlled just 36% of beef processing; today, it’s 85%. Critics argue this monopoly structure allows the packers to dictate both ends of the supply chain, squeezing ranchers while charging consumers more. Rancher groups like R-CALF USA have applauded the investigation, but they’re clear that only “real reform,” including possibly breaking up the Big Four, will restore fair competition. As Farm Action put it, the cycles of alleged exploitation won’t end without structural change.
Industry representatives, however, have pushed back. The Meat Institute, which speaks for the major processors, insists that market transactions are “transparent” and that high prices reflect supply and demand, not collusion. They point to the smallest national cattle herd in 75 years—thanks to years of drought—which has pushed up the price of live cattle. In fact, the Meat Institute claims packers have been losing money due to these high cattle prices, a point echoed by the American Action Forum, a conservative Washington think tank. According to their analysis, “packers margins were -$170.00 per head during the week ending Nov. 1, 2025, a slight improvement from the -$253.28 in the prior week … (and) that meatpacker margins will average -$165.96 per head in 2025.”
Yet, the market’s volatility in recent months has left many scratching their heads. In mid-August 2025, the White House slapped a 50% tariff on Brazilian beef imports, citing Brazil’s “politically motivated persecution” of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who’d been convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison. Brazil is a major supplier of beef trim, which is blended into U.S. ground beef, and the U.S. imported 1.1 billion pounds of it in the year before the tariff. At the same time, the administration closed the border to Mexican feeder cattle due to a screwworm outbreak, halting the flow of 1.2 million head per year. With U.S. cattle numbers at a 70-year low, these moves sent cattle futures prices soaring from $210 to $250 per hundredweight, adding about $400 in value per head of slaughter cattle, according to Drovers Journal.
But the rollercoaster didn’t stop there. Three months later, Trump reversed course, canceling most tariffs on Brazilian beef and quadrupling the level of Argentine beef imports. The reasons, again, appeared political, tied to election results in both the U.S. and Argentina. The result? Cattle futures prices plunged, with live cattle seeing a $30 correction and feeder cattle futures setting back nearly $70 per hundredweight. As Drovers Journal observed, “The cattle market chaos wasn’t tied to fundamentals but liquidation by speculative traders on fear of policy changes by the administration as President Donald Trump announced a plan to lower beef prices for consumers.”
Critics argue that the administration’s whiplash policy changes have done little to help either American cattlemen or everyday shoppers. Some, like the American Action Forum, suggest that opening U.S. markets to large, unlabeled supplies of South American beef ultimately helped struggling meatpackers more than consumers, while the DOJ investigation may serve as a political smokescreen rather than a solution to systemic problems.
The bigger question, perhaps, is whether this latest investigation will yield real change. A similar DOJ probe in 2020 ended without structural reform. Now, as the government’s antitrust machinery swings into action again and new task forces dig into the food supply chain, ranchers, consumers, and industry insiders alike are watching closely—hoping, maybe, that this time the outcome will be more than just another round of political theater.
As the nation’s dinner tables and rural livelihoods hang in the balance, the future of America’s beef industry—and who reaps its rewards—remains very much up for grabs.
