American cattle are predominantly grain-fed in feedlots, which creates high-quality, highly marbled, and relatively fatty beef. When meatpackers cut this cattle into premium steaks and roasts, they are left with a massive surplus of very fatty trimmings (often a 50/50 fat-to-lean ratio , To make consumer-grade hamburger meat (like standard 80/20 or 85/15 lean-to-fat ground beef), processors must blend those domestic fat trimmings with 90% lean beef trimmings.Because the U.S. does not produce nearly enough lean trimmings on its own, it relies heavily on foreign grass-fed cattle markets (like Australia and New Zealand) to supply the lean meat required to make the math work, The U.S. beef industry operates on a high-profit export model. American producers maximize their earnings by exporting expensive, premium grain-fed cuts (like ribeyes and T-bones) to high-bidding international markets in Asia and Europe. They then import cheaper, lean grass-fed trimmings to satisfy the massive domestic fast-food and grocery demand for inexpensive burgers. U.S. domestic cattle herd has shrunken to its lowest size in decades due to years of severe droughts, high feed costs, and wildfires.Lifting tariffs to import 300,000 metric tons of foreign trimmings is an attempt to artificially inject raw materials into the supply chain to lower those grocery bills immediately.
