How tariffs can shake Colorado beef’s role in global trade | Business

By the time President Donald Trump returned to office, the price of USDA-choice sirloin steak in the Western U.S., including Colorado, has already reached a record high of nearly $16 per pound in January.

Colorado has been dealing with a shrinking population of cattle, which hit its lowest point in 20 years, pushing prices up.

Now, some said Trump’s tariffs are throwing a wrench into the state’s largest agricultural industry when supply is limited and demand is high. Others, however, surmised his tariffs policy would position the U.S. to hash out better trade deals that could benefit American livestock producers. 

So far, Colorado’s beef industry hasn’t felt any major impacts in the first two months of President Trump’s tariffs, many of which have been scaled back or paused, according to Joe Schuele, a spokesman for the U.S. Meat Export Federation in Denver.

Except when it comes to China.

In response to Trump’s tariffs of 125% on China, the country retaliated with nearly 150% tariffs on U.S. beef.

That means the highest tariffs have now been leveled against Colorado’s fastest-growing beef market: China.

“You’ve seen trade essentially halted” since the tariffs went into effect, Schuele said.

It’s been “harsh,” he added.

Exporting beef is big business in Colorado, which is the fifth-largest exporter of beef in the U.S. and sends most of its product to Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Japan and China.

China makes up 15% of U.S. beef exports and accounted for $1.6 billion in sales last year. It’s more than a 400% increase from 2020, when exports totaled $310 million.

Trump said the tariffs changes are necessary to remedy a trade imbalance, in which barriers are low for foreign companies to enter the American market, even as they keep theirs high. Countries, particularly China, have exploited that imbalance, he said. The administration also argued that, broadly speaking, his policies would compel American companies to return their manufacturing bases to the U.S. 

The administration later scaled back tariffs on most countries for 90 days, but not China. On April 9, Trump hiked tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%. In response, China proceeded to boost its tariffs on U.S. goods to 125%, with beef even higher.

Colorado and the U.S. had been gaining ground in China after being shut out from the market for most of the century.

China banned U.S. beef in 2003 after a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as Mad Cow’s Disease, was detected. It took 14 years before China opened its doors again with limitations in 2017.

The country later dropped many restrictions and opened the market more fully to U.S. beef in 2020.

Foreign markets are also important buyers of offal meat, excess parts of the cow, such as liver and tripe, that the U.S. beef industry has a harder time selling to American consumers. South Korea and Japan are the largest consumers of U.S. beef, and China’s resurgence helped make U.S. beef more competitive for other countries, industry representatives said. 

“When China entered the picture, the U.S. industry was able to command a better price for cuts in all of our Asian markets: Japan, Korea, Taiwan,” Schuele said.

With China out of the mix, South Korea and Japan may absorb some of that demand, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture beef outlook for April.

“However, with economic headwinds that were already facing U.S. beef exports in these markets, there may not be sufficient demand to absorb all of the product given the high prices,” the report said.

While the drop in exports could help increase the availability of beef in the U.S., the USDA report said it raised its projections of what beef would cost this year due to the supply and the strength of the price.  

Uncertainty is the reality

In early April, Janie VanWinkle, a cattle rancher from west of Grand Junction, was part of a trip to Washington D.C. to talk with industry leaders and lawmakers about the tariffs.

She expressed optimism the tariffs could help create opportunities to hash out better trade deals with nations like Australia to import more U.S. beef. But there was also a lot of confusion from both sides of the aisle, she said, on what the effects on beef could be.

Most of all, the rancher from Mesa County said she got confirmation about what she already knew to be true.

Ranchers like her are just going to have to “wait and see.”

Uncertainty is nothing new for the Colorado beef industry, VanWinkle said.

Most years ranchers are at the whim of the weather, be it bomb cyclones or droughts, or consumer demand.

And this year, there’s the rapid escalation of tariffs.

Uncertainty is the “reality” of being in the beef business, she said.

“We don’t set the price for our product and so we absolutely are at the mercy of so many things that are outside of our control,” said the owner of VanWinkle Ranch, an operation spanning approximately 600 head of cows.

The new taxes on imports are hitting Colorado’s beef industry when prices are already at record highs.

The price of a USDA-choice sirloin steak in the West, including Colorado, costs about $15 per pound, according to data from the Federal Reserve.

The cost reached a record high in January, hitting nearly $16.

It coincides with a low herd count as Colorado’s inventory dipped below 600,000 cattle in 2025 for the first time in 20 years.

The beef industry typically goes through 10-year cycles, said VanWinkle, who was a former president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association in 2020, and is in the heat of another one.

“We’re certainly not seeing a herd rebuilding, which means that that price will continue to stay high,” she said, explaining that drought conditions and aging ranches have hindered herd growth. She also said many parts to their farming equipment come from China, which could affect their expenses.

The best thing they can do is raise the highest-quality beef possible and “hope for the best,” she said.

VanWinkle went into 2025 optimistic thinking high beef prices could hold for another year or two, barring any “black swan” event. 

Exports dictate about 20% of the value of her cattle, VanWinkle said. 

She sells some of her VanWinkle-branded products locally, which won’t be directly affected by tariffs, but a portion of her beef goes to meat factories, such as JBS in Greeley and Cargill Meat Solutions in Fort Morgan, where it could be shipped nationally or internationally to grocers.

“I don’t think we have a good feeling for what is going to happen in regards to the market,” VanWinkle said. “The market has stayed really strong through all of this kind of up and down.”

International reliance is the norm in the beef market

Beef producers rely on other nations for leaner meat and imports feeder cattle from Canada and Mexico.

The state’s dairy producers will also move cattle between Colorado and Canada, depending on the cost of barley and corn the cows feed on.

“If the price of feed is cheaper in the U.S., then you’ll tend to see imports of Canadian feeder cattle and the reverse,” said Luke Larson, a beef producer. “It’s dictated by feed prices.”

Larson is a partner at Ordway Cattle Feeders, a southeast Colorado cattle operation, and the CEO of Centennial Cuts near Fowler. He also sits on the board of directors for the Colorado Beef Council, a state organization for marketing the region’s beef industry.

The number of feeder cattle imported from Mexico dropped 75% year-over-year in the first two months of the year, according to the USDA’s outlook report, pushing projections of feeder steer prices up to $281, or 12% higher than the previous year.

The U.S. stands out globally in producing luxurious, marbled beef.

But because of the focus on fatty quality, the U.S. also needs to import a lot cheaper and leaner beef from outside the nation — specifically to use in ground beef.

“Most restaurants are going to use an 80% to 20% or 70% to 30% lean-to-fat ratio for ground beef,” Larson said. “Well, the cow we produce real high-quality beef from — you’ll end up with a lot of 50-50 trimmings that need lean to blend with.”

If the U.S. stops importing lean beef from other nations, Colorado producers may have to make up for it, insiders said. 

Does that mean more business for Colorado farmers? Not exactly, Larson said.

Because lean meat is cheaper, it means each cow would have lower returns compared to beef used for steaks. Ranchers will have to shift their production model, he said, and focus less on the more lucrative cuts of meat.

“We only have so many resources, so we’re going to start producing something of lower value to make that all work, and that’s going to cost more,” Larson said.

It would mean higher prices for ground beef and less money for Colorado farmers, making higher-cuts of beef even more of a luxury product. And when families are in a pinch, specialty cuts of meats are one of the first cuts on the grocery bill.

“It’s bad for producers and bad for consumers,” he added.

White House defends tariffs

In pushing for the tariff changes, Trump said America’s large trade deficit — $1.2 trillion last year — has led to the “hollowing out” of its manufacturing base, as the “pernicious economic policies and practices of our trading partners undermine our ability to produce essential goods for the public and the military, threatening national security.”

He said American companies pay more than $200 billion annually in value-added taxes to foreign countries, which he described as a “double-whammy.” U.S. companies, for example, pay the tax at the European border, but European firms don’t pay taxes to the U.S. on the income from their exports to America, he said. 

Critics, meanwhile, argued that American companies will end up paying Trump’s tariffs, pushing the cost on U.S. consumers.

Trump added that between $225 billion and $600 billion have been lost from counterfeit goods, pirated software and the theft of trade secrets.

The White House cited several reports, one of which said the tariffs he imposed in his first term “strengthened the U.S. economy” and “led to significant reshoring” in industries, notably manufacturing and steel production.

Another report he cited said tariffs reduced imports from China and stimulated more U.S. production of those goods, with minor effects on prices.

As the White House defended his tariffs policy, it also sought to reassure the public that inflation is under control — the Trump administration said prescription drug prices are down over 2% since he took office, gas prices dipped 7%, energy prices went down 2%, while the wholesale egg prices also saw a 50% drop.

And last month, some 75 countries reached out to discuss new trade deals with the U.S., the White House noted, as allies said the policies are compelling nations to negotiate.

“With my China tariffs, we’re ending the greatest job theft in the history of the world,” Trump said at his 100-day rally in Michigan. “China has taken more jobs from us than any country has ever taken from another country.”

Trump also said he believes he’s nearing a trade deal with China, “but it’s going to be a fair deal,” he said.

Meanwhile, Colorado joined several other states in a lawsuit attempting to stop the Trump administration from enacting tariffs, which Gov. Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser stated was “destroying our economy.”

The lawsuit argues Trump only has the authority to enact tariffs under extreme emergencies or threats and only Congress has power to impose taxes.

The Trump administration is planning on assisting farmers affected, though it’s not clear when.

During his first term in office, Trump paid billions to farmers to offset losses from tariffs he placed on China that resulted in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods — and White House officials said he’s considering doing it again.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said direct payments could be months away, Reuters reported.

She added that Trump remains committed to farmers but they need to “understand that there may be a short time of uncertainty.”

For farmers and ranchers, the pauses and the changes are making it difficult to make long-term decisions for their business.

“The markets are hard enough to forecast without tariff uncertainty,” Larson of Ordway Cattle Feeders said, “and they become almost impossible with tariff uncertainty.”