President Trump, facing mounting pressure over inflation at the grocery store, ordered a sweeping investigation into food price-fixing that especially targets foreign companies.
Why it matters: The order highlights a key tension of his domestic policy. It has proven difficult to have cheap food without cheap foreign labor, imports and capital.
Catch up quick: Trump issued an executive order Saturday directing the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to establish task forces on anti-competitive behavior in the food supply chain.
- The order specifically directs them to look at "whether control of food-related industries by foreign entities is increasing the cost of food products in the United States or creating a national or economic security threat to Americans."
- The task forces are expected to brief congressional leaders within six months. The order calls on the DOJ to pursue criminal proceedings if it finds evidence of price-fixing.
Between the lines: American food production relies on foreign businesses and capital.
- Of the so-called Big Four meatpackers that control more than 80% of the market, two (JBS and National Beef) are subsidiaries of Brazilian companies. National Beef was sold to Brazil's Marfrig during Trump's first presidency.
- Smithfield Foods, one of the world's largest pork producers, is controlled by China's WH Group.
- Foreign giants dominate related industries, too: fertilizer makers like Canada's Nutrien, seed makers like Germany's Bayer and BASF, and farm equipment companies like Japan's Kubota and Europe's CNH.
The intrigue: The administration has already moved to lower food costs by acknowledging policy impacts elsewhere.
- In October, the Labor Department moved to make it cheaper to hire foreign workers for farm jobs, in the face of immigration crackdowns that had squeezed agricultural labor and raised farmers' costs.
- In November, Trump exempted dozens of food products, from drinks and spices to fruits and meat, from reciprocal tariffs.
The big picture: Voter discontent with the administration's handling of inflation is rising in real time, even as officials promise prices will drop in the first half of next year.
- Recent polls show many of Trump's own supporters feel the cost of living is higher than it's ever been before.
Of note: There's nothing necessarily new in presidents ordering investigations into price-fixing in the face of rising costs.
- As Axios energy reporter Ben Geman notes, Obama and Biden ordered probes into energy collusion as gasoline prices rose.
The bottom line: The administration is pulling multiple levers to confront the rising cost of food, having learned from the Biden administration that voters care about their grocery bills above all else.
