NCBA Reaction To Trump Administration Investigation into Packers

NCBA’s Ethan Lane Weighs In on Trump Administration’s DOJ Investigation into Meat Packers

With the Trump administration’s announcement of a renewed Department of Justice investigation into major meat packers, industry leaders are closely watching what comes next. Ethan Lane, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), shared what producers will be looking for as the investigation begins.

“We’ve been sort of working through those challenges,” Lane said. “The president has met with a variety of stakeholders and clearly has kind of worked his way to a point where on Friday we saw him make that announcement about a renewed DOJ investigation into the packers.”

Lane noted that this renewed probe aligns with a request NCBA and other cattle industry groups made years ago during one of the most turbulent times for beef producers.

“This is something that, if you’ll recall, NCBA asked for along with every other group in the cattle industry back during COVID, during the darkest, worst times of COVID in 2020. We all obviously were seeing those awful prices for producers coming out of the Holcomb fire — some of those black swan events.”

According to Lane, the original investigation has been ongoing for years, with state attorneys general and DOJ officials meeting directly with packing plants and feedlots to understand price disparities and market behavior.

“Our expectation is that this will be sort of a continuation of that work product and something our members and NCBA have been asking for for years — some kind of closure on that,” he said. “At a certain point, we understand the Department of Justice doesn’t speak in press releases. They speak in indictments. We would love to know at some point what the findings of that have been over the last five years.”

Lane expressed cautious optimism that the Trump administration’s renewed attention could finally yield tangible results.

“We feel like maybe this fresh set of eyes in this administration — the second time the Trump administration has been involved in a DOJ packer investigation — let’s see some work this time and some conclusions so that the industry can bring some closure to this, figure out what it is we need to address, and make sure that we’re paying attention to that moving forward.”