The Biden administration on Monday unveiled a plan that is supposed to bring more competition to the US meat industry, dominated by a few large companies that are taking advantage, according to the White House, to push up prices while squeezing ranchers’ incomes .
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“I have said it before and I will say it again. Capitalism without competition is exploitation. This is what we see in meat and poultry, ”said US President Joe Biden, launching a virtual roundtable on the subject on Monday.
“Small farmers and independent breeders are forced to cease their activity, for some after generations and generations”, facing the giants of slaughter, processing and packaging, said the Democrat.
He also lambasted the “massive profits” these big companies are making as prices for consumers soar.
Believing that the meat sector is “a textbook” of the misdeeds of too great a concentration, the White House recalls for example, in a press release, that in terms of packaging and processing of beef , the four largest companies in the United States control 85% of the market.
These are Cargill (United States), Tyson (United States), JBS (Brazil) and National Beef (subsidiary of the Brazilian company Marfrig).
The Biden administration will free up a billion dollars of public money to support, in various ways, the development of “independent” meat processing and packaging infrastructure, especially with regard to slaughter.
The federal administration also wants to “strengthen the rules that protect farmers, ranchers and consumers”, which they say were relaxed during the presidency of Donald Trump.
For example, the White House promises to review the rules for attributing the designation “Product of USA”, which it is currently possible to use for meat that has not been than processed on American soil, but which comes from animals raised abroad.
The White House announcements were immediately criticized by the US Chamber of Commerce.
“As with so many other products, the reasons for rising meat prices are increased demand, disruption of supply chains due to COVID-19, and higher production costs,” writes Neil Bradley, vice-president of the organization which defends American companies, in a press release.
“It is quite clear that the administration is trying to use rising prices to justify its agenda, namely to overturn decades of political consensus around competition policy, to give way to regulation guided by the principle according to which the government would know better than everyone else ”, he loses his temper.
The US executive, faced with high inflation which is undermining the popularity of President Joe Biden, has made the strengthening of competition between companies, in several sectors, one of its main axes of economic policy.
Before the meat industry, the Biden administration had already taken the hydrocarbons sector in its sights, criticizing large companies for not passing on the fall in the price of oil to the pump.
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