Senator Marshall: The President is Playing Chess, Not Checkers
Senator Marshall Joins MSNBC to Discuss Argentina Beef and Airstrikes Against Drug Cartels
Kansas City – On Friday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss President Trump’s plan to purchase Argentine beef, a potential bailout for Argentina, and the strikes against drug cartels near Venezuela.
Click HERE or on the image above to watch Senator Marshall’s full interview.
On President Trump’s plan to buy Argentine beef:
“Well, we import about 12% of our beef right now to the United States. We also export 12%. What we’re importing is hamburger, but we’re exporting high-value products. Look, you’d have to go to McDonald’s every day for three years, and order a Big Mac every day until you had one Argentine hamburger. Argentina is a blip on the market. It’s 1/10 of 1%.
“We could increase the imports from Argentina by 10 times, and they would not even begin to replace the cattle that are not coming into this country from Mexico because of the screwworm. Mexico typically has about 1.2 million cattle that come into this country that graze in our lands as well. And Brazil, we cut down imports from Brazil due to the tariffs. What’s causing the high price of beef is the drought. We had the smallest cattle herd that we’ve had in over 70 years because of the drought we’ve had over the last 10 years. When you have drought, you don’t have water for the ponds, you don’t have grass for the cattle to graze on. And it’s not like chickens, where you have a new chicken every 30 days. It will take about three years to grow this cattle herd again.”
On what farmers and ranchers think of the proposal:
“Well, look, I certainly understand when the President sneezes, the market reacts. You know, when Jay Powell says something about interest rates, your stock market reacts. When President Trump makes an announcement like this, and people don’t understand the facts, they’re looking for it, for an opportunity to drive the price of beef down.
“So, we have three or four packing plants that control about 90% of the industry. So, they’re looking for a reason to drive these prices down. Who’s making the money, though, are those packing plants. My farmers and ranchers are getting $2 a pound for this beef, but it’s selling for $15. So, someone between my farmers and ranchers are making the money.
“That being said, the cattle industry is the best I’ve ever seen it in my entire lifetime. I grew up in this industry. They have to understand that the farmer, the rancher, is just now being healed. Thank God it’s rained out there; we’re growing our cattle herd. Thank God that President Trump is protecting and helping our farmers out in so many ways. He’s the one that got us these trade deals in Japan and China and South Korea, which have led to record exports of beef, especially these high-grade, high-value beef products that we’re exporting now.”
On what Senator Marshall thinks of the Argentine bailout deal:
“Well, look again, I think that the President here is playing chess and not checkers. I think we need to think about the role China has in South America. So, this is one more way that President Trump is trying to push China out of the Americas. Look, if you want to start having more and more rare earth minerals come into this country, Argentina is a great place to do that.
“So I think this is an opportunity to make a friend, to help an ally out as well. So, I think that by letting a little bit of beef in this country to maybe replace some of that that was coming from Brazil. And again, all we’re importing is hamburger from Argentina and these other countries; we don’t make enough hamburger. So I think this is a great time for us to make a stand in South America and push China out of South America.”
On the strikes on Venezuelan drug smugglers:
“Look, many presidents have done similar things. We are in a war. We’re losing two to 300 Americans every day from fentanyl poisoning. Thank God the border is secure. And that was the number one thing the President ran on was securing the border, getting the price of gas down, which he’s done, and grocery prices have stabilized as well. So, no one can argue that his methods aren’t working right now, that the imports of fentanyl in this country are way down right now, that his methods are working right now. So if you have basically a crime organization, terrorist organizations in Colombia, Venezuela, that are part of that crime ring, then yes, they’ve got to be broken up. Again, I think back to Panama, not too many decades ago, that we did something similar.”
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Contact: Payton Fuller
