The Justice Department confirmed its active investigation of potential antitrust violations in U.S. cattle and beef markets, reviewing more than 3 million documents and interviewing industry participants as federal officials scrutinize whether highly concentrated meatpacking power has contributed to high beef prices.
The four largest beef processors control more than 85% of the U.S. processing market, half of which are Brazilian-owned, Trump administration officials noted at a Monday news conference, where acting Attorney General Todd Blanche urged whistleblowers to turn in bad actors contributing to rising meat prices on Americans.
If the information you provide helps us secure a criminal penalty in excess of $1 million, you can be entitled to recover and receive 15-30% of the money that we recover, Blanche said, describing the DOJ fraud whistleblower rewards program. He urged ranchers, purchasers, processors and others to report possible price-fixing, bid-rigging, market allocation or procurement fraud.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins tied the probe to broader concerns about food security and shrinking domestic cattle supplies, saying the U.S. had about 86.2 million head of cattle and calves as of Jan. 1, the lowest since the 1950s.
Addressing the supply side of the economic issue, Rollins said the country has lost more than 17% of its cattle ranchers over the past decade, including more than 100,000 ranches, attributing the reduction to anti-cattle activist pressure and what she called the radical left ongoing assault against ranching as a way of life.
Growing the herd size is an immediate problem in need of solutions, and we have already begun implementing across the government and into the states how we are going to solve for that, Rollins said.
Rollins also singled out foreign ownership among major processors, saying two of the big four, JBS and National Beef, are Brazilian-owned or have significant Brazilian ownership.
Half of these meatpacking giants, including the largest meat packer in the world, are either foreign-owned or have significant foreign ownership and control, she said, calling that a threat to U.S. producers and national security.
White House senior trade adviser Peter Navarro said the combination of a historically small cattle herd, dominant processors, activist lobbyists and Brazilian ownership have combined to fuel ongoing beef inflation.
I hasten to add here that the Brazilians are far more of the problem, and it complicated by the fact that the Brazilians, particularly JBS, hands out millions of dollars to our American political system like it is candy, Navarro said. And the rate of return they get on that would make a Wall Street hedge fund blush, and we have got to put a stop to that.
Here the reason why the whistleblower program is so important: It because those are the folks who actually know where the bodies are buried, where the prices are fixed, Navarro said, alluding to situations where shutdowns of meatpacking houses were not really about electrical problems.
DOJ officials did not say when the investigation might result in charges or a lawsuit, but said civil and criminal antitrust inquiries can run in parallel, along with the help of whistleblowers feeding the investigators evidence.