The News
John Thune is making a rare break with the president over President Donald Trump’s plan to import beef from Argentina — even as they stay in lockstep on the 22-day government shutdown.
The Senate majority leader told Semafor in a Wednesday interview that Trump’s plans are a clear bid “to drive down beef prices.”
“This isn’t the way to do it,” Thune said. “It’s created a lot of uncertainty in that market. So I’m hoping that the White House has gotten the message.”
Thune hails from South Dakota, a major beef-producing state, and he’s joined by a long line of fellow cattle-conscious Republicans in warning the president and his administration against the import plan. GOP senators have raised the issue to the Department of Agriculture, White House advisers, and Trump himself — but so far, the president is digging in despite the red-state concerns.
Trump defended his import plan on Wednesday and said cattle ranchers “don’t understand” how his policies benefit them. Thune said the “ideal” scenario would be no imported beef from Argentina.
He said ranchers who tend to support Trump aren’t hiding their concern: “They think in the long term, he’s doing the right thing … In the near term, at least, it’s rattled the markets enough to make everybody nervous.”
It’s a rare split for a duo that has maintained total unity through one of the most challenging periods of Trump’s second term. Washington is mired in its second-longest shutdown of all time, but Trump and Thune are not deviating: They won’t negotiate with Democrats on health care until the government reopens. Their beef about Argentinian imports looks unlikely to change that.
Thune said talks with Democrats are quiet after he broached guaranteeing them a vote to extend expiring health care subsidies after the shutdown ends. His colleague, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told Semafor that he’s “invited a number of them to actually talk to John personally about what the path forward would look like,” an offer that hasn’t gone anywhere.
In their most recent backchannel conversations, rank-and-file Democrats asked for a vote to extend the subsidies at a 50-vote threshold rather than at 60, making passage much more likely. Thune said his conference would not accept that, and that Trump is “sincerely” willing to meet with Democrats about health care once the government opens up.
Otherwise, Trump has “deferred” to GOP leaders, Thune said, and “if he felt that another meeting would be productive, that he might do it.”
What Thune is less sure of: how long it might take to force action on reopening the government.
“I don’t know what that next trigger point is, and maybe it is the expiration or the enrollment date for the enhanced subsidies” on Nov. 1, Thune said. Asked if Thanksgiving could be the end date, Thune responded: “Could be, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
In the meantime, Thune wants to get the Senate back to passing its regular spending bills. But he’s preparing for a Plan B after Democrats rejected a defense spending bill last week — one that could involve extending current government funding all the way through the midterms.
“There’s also a lot of conversation around year-long, or longer than year-long [continuing resolution],” Thune said. “It’s not my preference. My preference is to do a normal appropriations process, and I still hope we can get there. But you know, if they continue this, at some point, that may be.”
In this article:
Know More
Trump is putting no pressure on Thune to change his strategy. And though many Republicans hate the shutdown, the leader is not getting internal blowback, either.
Some would like him to see him get even tougher.
“I would actually recommend that maybe we start staying in town,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa., recommending painful weekend sessions. “And I know this is hard on families that have younger children, but we all need to be here … it just forces us to come together and really start reckoning with the shutdown.”
Thune said he’s spoken to Ernst about the idea and that if he thought if it would pay dividends, he would. But he described it as a challenge to cancel last week’s recess and keep voting on the House-passed stopgap spending bill.
Keeping senators in town taking fruitless votes, as leaders in both parties have found, is tough to do.
On Thursday Thune will bring up a bill to pay government employees who are still working during the shutdown; after that, senators are expected to go home for the weekend. He said if the shutdown persists into next week he’ll continue calling up targeted, “rifle-shot” bills.
He sees little utility in talking to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is in a “box … there isn’t anything he can do right now, probably without completely ticking off and offending their left-wing base.” A meeting with Schumer might happen “if I thought that would be productive at all,” he added.
“It might help if they talked,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. “I don’t think anybody is doing enough to try to end the shutdown.”
There is plenty of talk, though, about convincing the president to back down on importing Argentine beef, the idea of which is already hurting cattle prices.
Thune suggested the president could tamp down imports from other countries if he brings in more from Argentina, and Ernst has spoken to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins about it.
Rounds said he favors bringing down food prices “by strengthening the American farmer’s ability to actually produce more food. And to do it less expensively.”
Room for Disagreement
Some Democrats say Thune — or any other Republican lawmaker, for that matter — is limited in what he can do to get out of the shutdown because of Trump’s sway.
“They can’t move until he tells them to, they’re so deeply scared of acting independently and then getting smacked down for it,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. “Until he decides he wants this to end, until he decides he wants them to negotiate, they’re not going to go there.”
Burgess’s view
Thune is the leader of his conference, but he’s also a senator representing South Dakotans.
As the new majority leader, Thune chooses his words very carefully, often tamping down his well-known views against tariffs and for free trade. But beef prices are clearly a big enough issue back home for Thune to break — however gently — with Trump.
Resolving the beef impasse seems like a more urgent task for Republicans than searching for a way out of the shutdown, which they see as a Democratic problem more than anything.
Which is why Thune is using some of his capital on Argentine cattle: From committee chairs to the leadership table, his Republican Conference is inordinately guided by the interests of ranching states.
Notable
- Trump is looking at quadrupling Argentine beef imports, according to Politico.