Who’s buying all the beef?

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

President Trump has said he’d try to get more Argentine beef into the U.S. So who would actually do the buying? That’s a general theme with a lot of these trade deals — big numbers but vague details. When China says it’ll buy more soybeans, is it the government or companies that does the buying? When South Korea promises to invest in American shipyards, who’s actually doing that? Today on the show, we dig into two questions from listeners and hear directly from an Argentine butcher.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:02.0	This is the indicator from Planet Money.
0:14.0	I'm Daryam Woods.
0:15.1	And I'm Waylon Wong.
0:16.3	In October, we heard some good news for beef lovers.
0:20.1	A White House official told Reuters that the U.S. is going to ratchet up beef imports from Argentina.
0:26.0	This was after President Trump talked to reporters about possibly buying Argentine beef.
0:30.9	We would buy some beef from Argentina.
0:33.7	If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down.
0:36.1	This sparked a question from indicator listener Sebastian Sanchez in Massachusetts.
0:41.3	I grew up in Argentina and always miss Argentine beef as it is a staple of Argentine barbecue,
0:47.1	asado.
0:48.2	And last month I saw the White House announced a plan on quadrupling the amount of Argentine beef
0:53.3	the U.S. purchases.
0:55.2	How does the U.S. government actually do this?
0:58.3	I love this question because President Trump's words in October where we would buy some beef from Argentina.
1:05.1	So does that mean the new White House ballroom is going to have a giant freezer of these prized cuts?
1:11.1	Or is the government going to force butchers to order from Argentina?
1:15.1	Other deals have raised similar questions from our listeners.
1:17.8	For example, Japan and South Korea are pledging to invest in the U.S. as part of their trade deals.
1:24.0	So who's actually doing the investing?
1:26.8	Today on the show, we've got the answers.
	...

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