Let’s see if John Thune’s sympathy for Trump can stand up to this news about the crony motivation behind Il Duce’s imported-beef plan.
When Donald Trump announced his plan to drop tariffs on 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef and drop that mystery meat on the U.S. market at a communist 25% discount, it was only logical to wonder which foreign asses he was kissing while screwing American livestockers.
Crony ass #1 appears to be Brazilian billionaire Joesley Batista of meatpacker JBS:
While the White House hasn’t said publicly which countries will ultimately supply the tariff-free beef, U.S. Farm Report over the weekend reported that JBS’s owners have given $5 million to Trump’s inauguration day celebration. Separately, AgBull reported this week that at least 119,000 lb. of JBS-linked meat shipments are sitting at the Port of Houston.
However, new facts came to light Tuesday, as the Wall Street Journal reported Joesley Batista, a controlling owner of JBS, met privately with Trump in the Oval Office on Aug. 20, which was one day before the tariff-pause announcement. The Wall Street Journal also reports the two discussed lowering a 26% import tax on Brazilian beef. Trump’s public post the next day proposed selling the imported beef at roughly a 25% discount to market prices [Tyne Morgan, “JBS Ties to Trump’s Beef Import Decision Draw Sharper Scrutiny After Oval Office Meeting Revealed,” Drovers, 2026.09.01].
Batista is big on bribery:
Batista and his brother Wesley Batista were previously fined in 2020 by the Justice Department over charges that they violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by using funds obtained through a bribery scheme to expand its U.S. operations. They agreed to pay a $256 million fine.
The Batistas also admitted at the time to spending roughly $150 million to bribe more than 1,800 Brazilian government officials to secure $1.3 billion in loans from the Brazilian Development Bank and federal pension funds [Mira Bhakta, “White House Defends Trump’s Beef Import Plan After Report on Billionaire’s Influence,” The Hill, 2026.09.02].
A Congress that cared about American agriculture more than a cult of personality would defend the American beef industry by passing legislation to block this handout to foreign powers and launching articles of impeachment for corruption, something Republicans used to not want in the White House. Ranchers need to figure out that irremediably corrupt Donald Trump has been selling all Americans out to profit himself and his rich friends, and ranchers and the rest of rural America need to rise up against this treacherous corporate cronyism and vote Trump’s enablers out of office.