President Trump’s visit to the McDonald’s Summit Monday to talk about his affordability agenda comes as he grapples with a major economic problem: soaring beef prices.
High food prices are weighing on economic confidence in the United States, and few meals affect the president as much as hamburgers. Mr. Trump has been known to serve McDonald’s at the White House, eat it in Saudi Arabia and even have it delivered during his court appearance.
But as beef prices approach $10 a pound, the Trump administration is working to bring them down, including lowering tariffs on beef imports and trying to address the cow shortage. While many Americans are frustrated by Mr. Trump’s tariffs, his advisers are working to shift the blame for the high cost of hamburgers — and everything else — to anyone other than the president.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to explain high beef prices this weekend by blaming undocumented immigrants, saying they were bringing sick cows into the United States. Mr. Bessent said this forced the Trump administration to suspend beef imports from Mexico, which is the second-largest beef supplier to the United States.
“Because of mass immigration, a disease that we had been rid of in North America came from South America, because these migrants brought some of their livestock with them,” Mr. Bessent said on Fox News on Sunday.
The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for an explanation of Mr. Bessent’s suggestion that sick cows were being brought across the border from Mexico. Mr. Bessent was referring to the spread of the New World butcherworm, a parasite that the United States is working with Mexico to eradicate.
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