Donald Trump’s plan to screw U.S. ranchers with imported beef is bad enough. But his deliberate concealment of where and how he’s getting it makes the whole thing stink even more, with whiffs of corruption.
Trump’s obvious nervousness about what he’s up to with what he plans to feed Americans keeps triggering my Spidey senses. It’s pretty clear I’m not the only one.
On Friday, during an event that purported to be about helping ranchers after he infuriated them with his imported beef plan, a reporter asked Trump where the imported beef is coming from.
Trump was evasive. “Well, it’s coming from different places,” he said.
“From which country?” she pressed.
“It’s coming from Argentina. It’s coming from Brazil. It’s coming from a couple of other places,” Trump replied.
Then he quickly changed the subject to boast about how he’s making sure the beef is top quality. “We have our inspectors down there. It’s very clean. It’s very good,” he hastily added.
That should make you suspicious that it will be anything of the sort. From his reflecting pool to his choice of defense secretary, nothing Trump does suggests competent or conscientious leadership.
A second reporter followed up. “Are those countries only Argentina and Brazil, or are there other countries?” she asked.
“Well, there could be other countries, but right now it’s primarily Argentina and Brazil. But there could be other countries,” Trump said.
He again quickly changed the subject.
“We’re doing it in a very limited fashion because our ranchers can handle it,” he continued, apparently forgetting the event was supposed to show him helping struggling ranchers. Then he seemed to have remembered. “But our ranchers really needed a little bit of help, and our ranches want the prices to be down too,” he said.
There’s something glaringly rotten and likely corrupt going on here. Somebody needs to get to the bottom of it.
