After the US president threatened to unleash the Department of Justice on US beef packers, on the grounds of collusion, Tyson announced it was closing one of its plants and reducing production at others.
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The price at meat counters has been stubborn, despite manipulated collapses in futures and reported cash prices.
Don’t Miss a Day: From crude oil to coffee, sign up free for Barchart’s best-in-class commodity analysis. The bigger question is if the US has started down the path of expanding its cattle herd, and increasing supplies.
My friend in the cattle industry called Monday afternoon to give me more information about the situation between the US administration and US beef packers, most notably Tyson. The stage was set for a showdown when the US president threatened to use the Department of Justice against the beef packing industry consisting of four major entities: JBS (a Brazilian company), Cargill (US), National Beef, (Brazil), and of course Tyson Foods (US). The point of contention has been, is, and will likely continue to be high beef prices at the meat counter. Recall the US president demanded lower beef prices, assuming the power his colleagues in Russia, China, and North Korea have over every aspect of every market, supply and demand be damned. His social media posts and directives worked on the futures markets (both live and feeder cattle), while he received some assistance from USDA as the latter took an axe to reported boxed beef prices, real or not. The problem was, though, prices US consumers were paying at the meat counter were not going down but rather continued to rise.
