John Boyd Jr., founder and president of the National Black Farmers Association on Monday slammed President Donald Trump’s controversial plan to import foreign beef, slamming the administration for failing to “put America first.”
Boyd was speaking with MS Now’s Katy Tur after Republican lawmakers spoke out against the president’s plan, which “will allow 300,000 metric tons of beef to be imported and sold 25 percent below market value for the next 90 days without activating an ‘out of quota’ tariff,” NewsNation reported Monday.
As Tur noted, Republicans are speaking out against the president’s plan, including Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer (Republican), who argued “flooding the market with foreign beef hurts our livestock industry.”
“Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, who is running for Senate in Iowa and is endorsed by the president, is also against the plan,” Tur reported. “She called it a bad idea.”
Boyd called the move a “raw deal by the president.”
“You know, here’s the president who keep making the announcement that he he loves farmers, he loves cattlemen, and then undermines us with 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef that we don’t even know where it’s coming from,” Boyd explained. “… So it’s bad beef that’s coming into the United States. The president hasn’t told anybody where the beef is coming from. There’s no guarantee that the American people are going to going to see any savings in the local grocery stores. This is more about helping meat packers, in my opinion. So he put the American farmers last.”
“Here you have a president who continues to say he loves farmers,” Boyd continued. “He loves the American people. This is what they want. It’s not what we want. … So here you have a ripple effect, in my opinion, for the first time in history for America’s farmers going out, losing our farms every day, and the president makes another sour deal and punches the American farmers in the face.”
Asked what Trump can do to help farmers, Boyd suggested he “take that money that he’s invested in Argentina, that $40 billion he invested in Argentina … invest that money right here in American farmers, right here in the United States.”
“He’s always saying, ‘America first,'” Boyd continued. “Put America first, put America, put your money where your mouth is and invest in cattle farmers right now. And he can do that today.”