President Donald Trump signed two executive orders Sept. 4 aimed at the cattle industry, while USDA announced four additional actions under its Ranchers First Initiative.

The first executive order addresses predator control and country-of-origin labeling, directing the Interior Department to review the status of gray and Mexican wolves under the Endangered Species Act and USDA to examine options for restoring mandatory country-of-origin labeling for beef.

The second focuses on competition and meat processing, directing USDA to step up Packers and Stockyards Act enforcement and work with the Justice Department on livestock-market competition. It also calls for expanding programs that allow state-inspected meat to move across state lines and provide more assistance to small and regional processors.

USDA separately announced four actions:

The package follows USDA’s 2025 Beef Industry Plan and the Ranchers First Initiative announced earlier this week, as the U.S. cattle herd remains at its smallest level since the 1950s.

My thought: that is enough for the newsletter. Then your separate MCOOL story can do the actual reporting and explain the important distinction: Trump did not reinstate MCOOL today; he ordered USDA to figure out the legal/regulatory path for doing it.

The White House directs USDA to review country-of-origin labeling

By Rachel Dahl

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Sept. 4 directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to examine how mandatory country-of-origin labeling (MCOOL) could once again be required for beef sold in the United States.

For cattle producers who have spent more than a decade fighting to restore the labels, it is a significant development.

But MCOOL is not back, just yet.

The executive order gives Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins 90 days, working with the U.S. Trade Representative, to review the government's existing legal authority to require country-of-origin labeling for beef and conduct an economic analysis of what mandatory labeling would mean under current market conditions.

After that review, USDA may pursue new regulations if existing law allows it. If it determines congressional action is needed, the administration can instead recommend legislation.

Congress removed beef and pork from mandatory country-of-origin labeling requirements in December 2015 after a years-long trade dispute with Canada and Mexico. USDA formally amended its regulations the following year.

Until then, the federal COOL program required retailers to tell consumers where beef originated. The rules generally required information reflecting where an animal was born, raised and slaughtered.

Canada and Mexico challenged the requirements at the World Trade Organization, arguing the system discriminated against imported livestock because cattle and hogs had to be segregated and tracked through the U.S. supply chain.

The WTO ultimately found that the U.S. system treated imported Canadian and Mexican livestock less favorably than domestic livestock. In 2015, Canada and Mexico were authorized to impose retaliatory tariffs worth more than $1 billion annually.

Congress repealed the beef and pork requirements before those tariffs were imposed.

Which may explain why Friday's executive order does not simply direct USDA to put the old labels back on grocery store beef.

Instead, the administration specifically directed USDA and the U.S. Trade Representative to determine what can legally be done now and to analyze the economic consequences before moving forward.

This action follows what has already been one major change in beef labeling this year.

Beginning Jan. 1, meat voluntarily labeled “Product of USA” or “Made in the USA” must come from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States.

Previously, imported beef could in some circumstances receive a U.S.-origin claim after processing in this country, and that January action closed that loophole.

However, that label remains voluntary, and the is the difference on which MCOOL supporters have focused.

A packer selling beef produced entirely from U.S. cattle can choose to identify it as American. A packer selling imported beef, or beef derived from imported cattle, generally is not required under the federal COOL program to tell the grocery store customer where that beef originated.

For producers, the argument goes well beyond consumer curiosity, the theory being that U.S. cattle and U.S.-produced beef should be able to compete on origin as well as price.

If consumers value beef produced from cattle born and raised in the United States, mandatory labeling would allow them to identify it at the meat counter. Supporters argue that, in turn, could allow some of that consumer preference to work backward through the supply chain to the producer.

USDA's own research surrounding the voluntary “Product of USA” rule found evidence that consumers place value on U.S. origin. In one USDA-commissioned survey, consumers indicated a willingness to pay more for beef identified as coming from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States.

But MCOOL is not without costs – tracking cattle through the system requires keeping records. Imported and domestic cattle may have to be segregated. Packers and retailers have to maintain origin information through processing and distribution.

Those costs were central to the earlier WTO dispute.

USDA now has to answer several questions that have hovered over MCOOL for years:

Can a mandatory beef-labeling system be designed under existing federal law after Congress' 2015 repeal? If not, what legislation would Congress have to pass?

Can a new system provide meaningful origin information without reproducing the trade problems that sank the previous program?

What would compliance cost packers, feeders and retailers?

And perhaps most importantly for cattle producers: Will consumers use the information in a way that changes the value of American cattle?

The United States is operating with its smallest cattle herd since the early 1950s. Beef prices are high. Packing capacity is being reshuffled. Tyson recently announced additional plant closures and the sale of another major slaughter facility.

At the same time, the administration recently moved to increase access to lower-tariff imported beef in an attempt to address high consumer prices, a decision that drew sharp criticism from cattle producers and organizations across the country.

Mandatory origin labeling would not stop imported beef from entering the United States.

It would, however, give consumers more information about where the beef they are buying came from — exactly what organizations including R-CALF USA and the National MCOOL Coalition have been demanding.

Just one day before Friday's announcement, the National MCOOL Coalition said more than 5,000 people had signed a petition calling for restoration of mandatory beef labeling.

And that may ultimately be the point.

Consumers are asking more questions about where their food comes from and how it was produced. If country of origin becomes one of the things they can see at the meat counter, we'll finally get to see whether that information changes what they buy and whether any of that value makes its way back to the American cattle producer.

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By Rachel Dahl

One of the immediate questions surrounding the possible return of mandatory country-of-origin labeling is whether it could eventually become tied to electronic identification tags.

For ranchers who are wary of mandatory EID, that is not a small concern.

USDA's current electronic identification requirements were adopted under the Animal Disease Traceability program and apply to certain classes of cattle moving interstate, including sexually intact cattle 18 months and older, dairy cattle and cattle used for exhibition or rodeo. Most feeder cattle are not currently covered by the federal EID requirement.

Mandatory country-of-origin labeling, meanwhile, is aimed at telling consumers where their beef originated.

Under the previous MCOOL system, ranchers were not required to electronically tag every animal. USDA allowed cattle origin to be established through producer affidavits, transaction records and other documentation that followed cattle through the marketing chain.

But there is a potential overlap since USDA has previously recognized animal-identification systems as one method for verifying an animal's origin. And today the federal government has a far more developed electronic livestock traceability system than it did during the last major fight over country-of-origin labeling.

If USDA determines that mandatory labeling can be restored, producers will want to know exactly how an animal's origin will have to be documented.

R-CALF USA, which has strongly supported restoration of MCOOL, has also opposed federal mandatory EID requirements and has argued that the two policies should remain separate, creating an important dividing line in the debate.

For many ranchers, support for country-of-origin labeling does not mean support for a federal system capable of electronically tracking every animal.

As USDA begins its review, one of the most important questions may be not simply whether MCOOL returns, but what producers will be required to do on the ranch to make it work.

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By Bridgette Williams

Tyson Foods has announced another major restructuring of its beef business, closing facilities in Joslin, Illinois, and Eagle Mountain, Utah, while pursuing the sale of its beef plant near Pasco, Washington.

For rural communities built around cattle and meat processing, the consequences reach far beyond one company's balance sheet. Thousands of workers are affected, while cattle feeders and producers are left asking a more immediate question: Where will the cattle go now?

Tyson announced Aug. 13 that it will end operations at its Joslin beef plant and its Eagle Mountain case-ready facility and pursue the sale of its Pasco facility, technically located in Wallula, Washington. The company said it plans to concentrate its beef business around three major facilities in Dakota City, Nebraska; Holcomb, Kansas; and Amarillo, Texas.

Tyson points to one of the most severe cattle shortages in U.S. history as a major reason for the restructuring.

The numbers bear that out. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there were 86.2 million cattle and calves on U.S. farms as of Jan. 1, 2026, the smallest national herd since 1951. Years of drought, high production costs and slow herd rebuilding have contributed to the decline.

The shortage has also become increasingly expensive for the packing industry. Tyson announced Sept. 3 that it now expects its beef segment to post an adjusted operating loss of between $625 million and $775 million for fiscal 2026.

For producers, however, a packing plant closure is about more than Tyson's losses.

The Joslin, Illinois, plant processed approximately 3,000 cattle per day and employed roughly 2,500 people. Its closure removes a significant buyer from an important cattle-feeding region.

That leaves feeders who expected to market cattle through Joslin looking elsewhere. How much farther will those cattle have to travel? What does additional transportation cost? And what happens to local cattle prices when there are fewer packers competing to buy them?

Those are not theoretical questions when an operation is shipping truckloads of cattle.

Several states away, Eagle Mountain, Utah, faces a different version of the same problem. The facility there was not a slaughter plant. It was a case-ready meat operation, taking larger cuts of beef and pork processed elsewhere and turning them into steaks, roasts, ground meat and other retail-ready products.

The roughly $300 million facility opened in 2021 with expectations that it would create more than 800 jobs and potentially grow beyond that. Its closure will now affect 723 employees.

Utah had also made a significant public investment in bringing Tyson to the state. When the facility was announced, Tyson was approved for as much as $5.26 million in post-performance state tax credits and a $300,000 infrastructure grant.

Five years later, the plant is closing.

That leaves another set of questions for the community: What happens to the facility? Can another employer use it? How quickly can hundreds of workers find comparable jobs, and what becomes of the economic activity the plant was expected to create?

In Washington, the future remains less certain.

Tyson is pursuing the sale of its Pasco-area beef plant, located in Wallula in Walla Walla County. The facility employs an estimated 1,400 to 1,600 people and processes roughly 2,000 cattle per day.

A sale does not necessarily mean the plant will close. A buyer could keep the operation and its workforce intact. But until a buyer is known, employees and cattle producers throughout the Pacific Northwest are left wondering what comes next.

The plant also has a major physical footprint in the region. Tyson has been identified as the area's largest water consumer, using roughly 2 million to 3 million gallons per day.

There is another Tyson community that offers a glimpse at what may come next.

Earlier this year, Tyson closed its Lexington, Nebraska, beef plant. The facility employed approximately 3,200 people and had the capacity to slaughter nearly 5,000 cattle per day.

For a community of roughly 10,000 people, the loss was enormous.

But Lexington did not simply wait for everyone to leave.

Drew Price, who owns a party-bus fleet and vehicle rental business near Johnson Lake, began looking for a way to help displaced employees reach jobs in other communities. Working with Sustainable Beef in North Platte and using grant funding from the Nebraska Department of Labor, a bus program began carrying former Tyson employees to work.

Two buses now travel daily to Sustainable Beef, with another carrying workers to a Walmart distribution center in North Platte.

The effort has helped some families remain in Lexington rather than moving away to find employment.

It is a reminder that when a large employer leaves a rural community, the response often falls to the people who live there.

The larger cattle question remains.

The Lexington plant represented capacity for nearly 5,000 head per day. Joslin handled roughly another 3,000, and the Pasco area plant approximately 2,000. Taken together, those three facilities account for roughly 10,000 head of daily slaughter capacity that has either disappeared or is now facing a change in ownership.

Tyson says it intends to move production through its remaining network and eventually ramp a second shift back up at Amarillo as cattle become available.

The producers who stock these plants are concerned with how far their herd will now have to be shipped for slaughter and packing.

Every additional mile costs money. Fewer nearby buyers can change competition for cattle. And decisions made in corporate offices eventually show up in the checkbook of the producer trying to decide whether to retain heifers, expand a herd or stay in the cattle business at all.

All of this is happening while consumers are paying historically high prices for beef at the grocery store.

That creates one of the strangest realities in today's cattle market: consumers can be paying record prices for beef at the same time packers are losing hundreds of millions of dollars, while producers are trying to determine whether today's cattle prices justify the cost and risk of rebuilding the nation's herd.

The bigger question for producers may be what the packing industry looks like when it does, and how many places will be left to sell those cattle.

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