Ranchers turn on a plan to import Mexican beef

President Trump is taking heat from ranchers over a plan to import Mexican beef to ease a supply pinch, PBS NewsHour reported Wednesday. The pinch is real enough to show up in a grocery case. The politics are real enough to show up in a primary.

Cattle producers have spent years listening to speeches about America First and then watching the administration hunt for cheaper protein. Consumers have spent those same years listening to speeches about grocery prices. A president cannot satisfy both with one border. He can only choose which constituency he is willing to call ungrateful.

WORLD Radio noted the border opening in the same newscast as Canada’s retaliatory tariffs. That is the map: North America as a single food system that politicians keep trying to nationalize one commodity at a time.