American ranchers watched their cattle prices collapse while grocery store beef hit all-time highs.
Donald Trump's DOJ is demanding answers from the eight companies making billions off the gap.
Donald Trump just sent letters to Walmart and Costco over beef prices – and one detail buried in those documents changes everything.
The Investigation Biden Sat On for Years
This is not a new problem.
It is a problem that finally has a president willing to act on it.
The DOJ first launched an antitrust probe into the big four meatpackers – JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and National Beef – during Trump's first term.
Biden inherited it, kept it alive for four years, and never filed a lawsuit.
Trump's DOJ chief Gail Slater closed that stale investigation and opened a brand new one – this time criminal.
That means executives are looking at fines and prison sentences, not just corporate settlements.
Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the scale of the probe in May: federal investigators have reviewed more than three million documents and personally contacted ranchers, cattlemen, producers, and processors across the entire supply chain.
"In the beef industry, the big four processors control over 85 percent of the beef processing market," Blanche said. "Two of the big four are primarily foreign owned."
Brazil Is Running Your Grocery Store
JBS is the world's largest meat company, based in Brazil, with American facilities large enough to process a significant share of the nation's beef supply.
National Beef – the fourth-largest beef processor in the United States – is majority owned by Marfrig Global Foods, another Brazilian company.
Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez spent years warning that JBS's expansion into the American food supply was a national security threat.
They wrote letters to the Treasury Department requesting CFIUS review.
They documented that JBS's parent company paid a $3.2 billion fine in Brazil after admitting to bribing more than 1,800 Brazilian politicians – and that the company used those ill-gotten government loans to acquire American meatpacking facilities.
Brazil bribed its way into controlling American beef.
Biden did nothing.
Trump is doing something.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2095491521290100928?s=20
In 1977, the big four controlled just 25 percent of beef processing.
By 1992, it was 71 percent.
Today, it's 85 percent.
Four decades of consolidation crushed every small competitor and left American ranchers with nowhere to sell and American families with no leverage at the checkout line.
Eight Letters, Eight Grocers, and a Warning
The Justice Department's antitrust division sent formal letters to eight of the largest grocers in the country – Kroger, Publix, Walmart, Albertsons, Aldi, Ahold Delhaize USA, Costco, and Amazon – demanding answers about soaring retail beef prices.
"Beef prices are a critical concern to Americans, and a priority for this Justice Department," the DOJ announced.
Trump went further on Truth Social, making clear this isn't a regulatory exercise – it's a fight.
"Ranchers and Farmers have always been a number one priority for me. They work very hard, are smart, efficient, and immaculately CLEAN, but for years I have heard that they have had a tremendous problem with the Big Processors, who many say are a nasty Monopoly," Trump wrote. "There are, essentially, 4 of them, a very non competitive number, and they make life miserable for our wonderful Farmers and Ranchers, and I can't let that happen, can I?"
He announced he is authorizing legal documents allowing farmers and ranchers to process their own beef – breaking the stranglehold the big four have held for forty years.
The Spread That Proves the Fix Was In
The gap between what ranchers receive and what consumers pay is the tell.
While cattle prices dropped, boxed beef prices went up.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2095124733226365416?s=20
That's not market forces.
That's a squeeze.
The processors pocket the spread, the ranchers lose money, and families at the grocery store pay record prices for ground beef.
Trump's DOJ is now running this investigation on two tracks simultaneously – civil and criminal – with whistleblower incentives attached.
Any insider who provides information leading to a criminal penalty over $1 million can collect 15 to 30 percent of the recovered funds.
The people who know where the bodies are buried just got a very compelling reason to talk.
Sources:
- Nick Givas, "DOJ Announces Walmart, Costco, Amazon Are Under Investigation in Beef Affordability Probe," The Western Journal, September 2, 2026.
- "Trump admin targets 'big 4' meat packers in antitrust crackdown over beef prices," TNND/WSET, May 2026.
- Menendez and Rubio, Letter to Treasury Secretary Yellen regarding JBS CFIUS Review, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
- "More foreign ownership of U.S. beef processors raises food safety concerns," The Counter/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.