U.S. Sen. John Curtis, a Republican, broke with President Donald Trump over a controversial plan to import foreign beef, siding with a leading council of Utah ranchers who say the move could put their livelihoods at stake.

“While I appreciate the intent to lower food prices for consumers, importing foreign beef to be sold at artificially depressed prices undercuts Utah’s family-operated cattle ranchers and poses long-term risks to our domestic supply chain stability,” Curtis said in a statement on X Thursday morning.

“With herds facing challenges across the country, we should prioritize solutions that ensure a fair marketplace and provide regulatory relief for American producers working to build up inventories,” he added.

Curtis’s statement Thursday morning came after Trump signed a proclamation Wednesday removing tariffs from 300,000 metric tons of imported lean beef trimmings for 90 days in an effort to lower ground beef prices in the U.S. The unnamed countries supplying the beef, Trump said, would sell it at 25% less than the current market price.

Trump’s plan will be in place through November’s midterm elections, in which Republicans are expected to lose seats, in part due to nationwide concerns about gas prices and other affordability issues.

The plan is worrying for a myriad of reasons, Brent Tanner, the executive director of the Utah Beef Council, said in an interview with The Tribune Thursday.

“First of all, that announcement impacted the live market prices, so our markets crashed at a very critical time,” Tanner said, noting that Utah ranchers are currently marketing their annual production of calves.

Additionally, Tanner added, he and other ranchers are concerned about where this beef is coming from, as Trump has yet to name specific countries.

“Where is it coming from? Does it even exist out there?” he asked. The industry, he said, is not aware of such availability, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters Tuesday that even she was not “privy” to that information.

The move to allow cheap foreign beef into the country has frustrated some members of Trump’s base as well as some of his often staunch Republican allies in Congress.

And while Tanner said the Beef Council applauds attempts to bring down the high cost of beef as overall supply in the U.S. is low, he feels it would behoove Trump to think long-term.

Temporarily importing beef creates a volatile market, he said. “And he’s doing it for just a very short period of time, so it probably won’t even make a significant impact on the price at the retail level.”

According to a December 2025 report from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, cattle sales made up over 26% of Utah’s livestock and poultry product sales in 2022. At the time, the average price of one pound of ground beef was $1.71 nationally. By August 2025, however, the average had risen to $6.32 per pound.

“Declining cattle inventories, sustained demand, and rising input prices… drive the price increase,” the report read. “While producers benefit from higher beef prices in the short term, they are faced with higher costs to rebuild their herds in the long term.”

Weather and fuel prices

It’s a difficult problem to address, Tanner acknowledged. For ranchers in Utah and across the country, extended drought has meant that cattle don’t have good grazing options, which brings down cattle inventory.

“The best thing that we could get right now is a change in the weather patterns,” he said.

Perhaps second best, he said — and more in Trump’s control — would be to bring down fuel prices, which have skyrocketed during the war in Iran.

“He would help our industry significantly if he could get the price of fuel down,” Tanner said. “Yesterday, I filled just my pickup, and it was $120 just for one tank of gas. [If] you drive up and fill a big, old tractor tank, that’s very significant.”

Last week, ahead of Trump’s announcement, U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy of Utah’s 2nd Congressional District said she had been receiving many calls from ranches who were unhappy about increased imports of foreign beef.

“I hear you,” she wrote on X, adding, “President Trump is focused on keeping beef affordable for American families. Utah ranchers are ready to be part of the solution. They’ve weathered tough years, innovated, and kept producing some of the best beef in America. I’m confident that Utah beef producers would love to work with the President on America-first policies that strengthen our ranchers and put American beef on American tables.”

A spokesperson for Maloy did not respond to a request for comment regarding Trump’s official proclamation, and spokespeople for Utah’s other members of Congress — including U.S. Sen. Mike Lee and U.S. Reps. Blake Moore, Mike Kennedy and Burgess Owens — did not respond to a request for comment.