R-CALF USA Praises President Trump’s Planned 50% Brazilian Tariff

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 10, 2025 – President Trump’s announcement of a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods beginning Aug. 1 received high praise from R-CALF USA.

In a letter sent to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in March, the group sought increased tariffs for Brazilian beef, explaining that Brazil and other countries regularly blow through the United States’ annual tariff–rate quota limit. Brazil is subject to a beef quota limit of approximately 143.3 million pounds and has no difficulty in paying the current over–quota tariff rate of 26.4% in its effort to capture more of the U.S. beef market away from domestic farmers and ranchers.

The letter pointed out that Brazil had met its quota level in February of 2024 but continued exporting an additional 474 million pounds during the remainder of the year, despite the 26.4% tariffs on that additional amount.

“The quota level and over–quota tariff rate were established to prevent Brazil from displacing domestic cattle producers, but the current 26.4% over–quota tariff rate is clearly far too low to discourage excessive Brazilian beef imports, and this is a major contributor to the ongoing exodus of farmers and ranchers from our U.S. cattle industry, which is weakening our domestic food supply chain,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard.

More recently, R-CALF USA’s congressional testimony presented in June pointed out how the U.S. Department of Agriculture had grossly underestimated the volume of Brazilian beef that would penetrate the U.S. market and subsequently harm U.S. cattle producers. The testimony states that when the USDA finalized its 2015 rule to allow fresh beef from Brazil, the agency estimated that Brazil’s imports would be about 88,000 pounds per year, and this would result in a harm to U.S. cattle producers of $216 million. But during the past four years, imports of Brazilian beef averaged over 489,000 pounds, which is 455% above the USDA estimate.

“We cannot both continue allowing Brazil and other countries to penetrate our market with their beef and rebuild our diminished beef supply chain, which is necessary to protect our national food security. President Trump’s 50% tariff on Brazilian beef is an excellent start, and we hope he will soon do the same for Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand, which – like Brazil – are contributing to the dismantling of our domestic food chain,” Bullard concluded.