Trump orders reviews of mandatory beef origin labels, wolf protections and packer enforcement; reports due in 60 and 90 days

President Trump signed two executive orders on Sept. 4 that send three long-standing requests from cattle producers, mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for beef, fewer federal limits on killing wolves and tougher policing of meatpackers, into agency reviews with 60- and 90-day clocks^{[1, 2]}. Neither order changes a label, a species listing or a packer rule on its own^{[6, 7]}.

The signing came nine days after a proclamation that opened an extra 300,000 metric tons of low-tariff lean beef trimming imports, a move cattle groups criticized^{[4, 6, 7]}. DTN reported the orders were signed in the Oval Office with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall and R-CALF USA President Dave Hyde in the room^[6].

What do the two executive orders require?

Executive Order 14425, “Supporting America’s Ranchers.” The order rests its case on a national herd “at a 75-year low” while beef demand has grown almost 10% over the past decade^[1]. It has four working parts^[1]:

• A regulatory sweep. Within 90 days, USDA, Interior, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the Food and Drug Administration and the Small Business Administration must report on every rule, guidance document and policy that affects ranchers, with recommendations.
• Wolves. Within 90 days, the Interior Secretary must determine whether the gray wolf and the Mexican wolf have met the recovery criteria for delisting or downlisting under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and start the process if they have. Interior also drafts a legislative recommendation to delist, and the White House is to encourage states to drop wolves from state protected-species lists.
• Depredation claims. USDA and Interior are to consider rewriting compensation rules, evidence standards and handbooks so claims are judged consistently, including “by considering additional factors beyond subcutaneous hemorrhaging when appropriate.” Interior is also to consider loosening its criteria for authorizing lethal removal.
• Origin labels. Within 90 days, the Agriculture Secretary, consulting USTR, must review “all statutory and regulatory authorities that may permit the establishment of mandatory country-of-origin labeling for beef products” and send the White House an economic analysis “that reflects current conditions and modernized practices.”

After that review, USDA “may issue or amend regulations, to the extent permitted under applicable law,” or develop recommendations for Congress^[1].

Executive Order 14424, on livestock competition and meat processing. USDA must expand investigations under the Packers and Stockyards Act, with attention to unfair, discriminatory or deceptive practices and price manipulation, and add staff to the Agricultural Marketing Service’s (AMS) Packers and Stockyards Division, the Office of General Counsel and the Inspector General^[2]. It is told to work with the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division under a Sept. 26, 2025, memorandum of understanding, and to deliver an enforcement report and plan within 60 days^[2]. USDA is also to review its Packers and Stockyards regulations and revise them “as appropriate”^[2].

The same order directs the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) work: recruiting more states into the State Meat and Poultry Inspection, Cooperative Interstate Shipment and Talmadge-Aiken programs; training for small and very small plants; a web directory of local slaughter capacity; dropping FSIS reporting requirements that do not serve core food safety; and a new USDA coordinator for ranchers and processors^[2]. Two more 60-day reports cover participation in the state-federal programs and the statutes and trade considerations that keep state-inspected and custom-exempt meat out of interstate commerce^[2]. USDA is also to stand up a “Strengthening Processing for U.S. Ranchers” guaranteed loan program for small and regional beef processors^[2].

By this column’s count, the 60-day reports fall due around Nov. 3 and the 90-day items around Dec. 3.

What USDA added the same day

USDA paired the orders with four items under its Ranchers First Initiative, announced earlier in the week^[5]:

• Grasslands CRP: nearly 1 million new acres in the grasslands side of the Conservation Reserve Program, with rental payments and cost share for keeping rangeland and pasture in grazing.
• Remote grading: a plan to nearly double the producers and plants in AMS’s Remote Grading Program, which lets USDA grade carcasses from off site using smartphones and an app.
• Instrument grading: wider use of Instrument-Enhanced Grading, which USDA says already covers about 20% of fed cattle, or 20,000 head a day.
• Eminent domain: USDA’s agricultural “lawfare” strike force will turn toward eminent domain claims against ranches.

Earlier Ranchers First items include a Beef Retention and National Development (BRAND) endorsement for Livestock Risk Protection and the SPUR 2.0 loan program^[5]. The release does not give enrollment dates or loan terms for either.

In the field: cow-calf, feeders and small plants

Western and Great Lakes cow-calf operations have the most direct stake in the wolf section. Gray wolves remain federally protected across much of the country, with protections that differ by region, Reuters reported^[7]. U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) President Justin Tupper cautioned that “the litigation pool on wolves is deep, and past delisting efforts have been quickly halted by injunctions,” according to Drovers^[8].

Conservation groups led by Western Watersheds Project, the Wolf Conservation Center and the Center for Biological Diversity said ranchers are entitled to 100% compensation for wolf-predation losses under state and federal programs^[9]. “This is a huge distraction to placate a handful of ranchers and make them believe that wolves are a greater threat than President Trump’s own policies,” said Greta Anderson of Western Watersheds Project^[9]. The Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project put the wild Mexican wolf count at 317, and Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity said the group is “prepared to prove in court” that downlisting would be illegal^[9].

Feeder and fed cattle sellers are the audience for the packer section. The White House says the four largest beef packers bought 36% of steers and heifers more than 40 years ago and 85% today^[3]. Sterling Marketing puts the big packers’ current harvest share at 75.8%, down from 81.7% in 2015, and its president, John Nalivka, told Drovers that consolidation largely reflects packing economics, with packers losing $100 to $150 a head for more than a year by his firm’s tracker^[8]. “The only thing worse than having too few packers,” Nalivka said, “is having no packers”^[8]. On the poultry side, USDA has already delayed the Biden-era rule on grower ranking systems from July 1, 2026, to Dec. 31, 2027, and DTN said it had asked USDA whether the order affects those plans^[6]. That rule is one of three Packers and Stockyards rules USDA’s regulatory agenda listed for repeal in August.

Small processors and direct-to-consumer ranches get the processing section. “For the first time ever, we’re going to give farmers and ranchers the right to process their own food,” Trump said at the signing, as quoted by DTN^[6]. DTN noted that producers already have ways to process their own meat; the order works on access to inspection and interstate markets^[6]. The fact sheet notes AMS remote grading now reaches 92 facilities in 34 states^[3].

The labeling fight, again

Congress repealed mandatory COOL for beef and pork in 2015 after a series of World Trade Organization rulings on challenges from Canada and Mexico^[7]. Today the voluntary “Product of USA” label is limited to beef from animals born, raised and processed in the United States^{[7, 8]}.

USCA backs a mandate. “U.S. consumers deserve to know where their beef comes from, and we support a WTO-compliant framework that requires all beef” to be accurately labeled, Tupper said, according to Drovers^[8]. The Meat Institute opposes it, putting the cost at “$721 million in first-year implementation costs” plus $835 million a year added to consumer beef purchases, and said the order “raises concerns about revisiting a failed policy that the United States has already tried and that Congress ultimately repealed in 2015”^[8]. Drovers reported that the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, for its part, objected to the president celebrating falling beef prices, saying cow-calf producers had “lost tens of millions of dollars in the past few weeks due to the administration’s actions”^[8].

On the Hill: labeling runs through the farm bill

DTN reported that only Congress can bring the mandatory label back, that the language sits in the stalled Senate farm bill and that it was left out of the House version^[6]. “It’s gonna be up to the House,” Trump said, according to DTN^[6]. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, praised the Packers and Stockyards provisions: “For years, I’ve sounded the alarm about anticompetitive practices in the meatpacking industry,” he said, as quoted by DTN^[6]. Wolf delisting has a legislative track too: Interior must give the president a recommendation for a bill to delist or downlist both wolves^[1].

What to watch

• Lean trimmings tranches: the second 100,000-metric-ton tranche opens Oct. 1 and the third Oct. 31, closing when filled or on Nov. 30. USDA and USTR are to check whether those imports sell at 25% below market, and the president may end the increase if they do not^[4].
• Within 60 days: USDA’s Packers and Stockyards enforcement plan and the two interstate-shipment reports^[2].
• Within 90 days: Interior’s wolf recovery determinations, the cross-agency ranching rule review and USDA’s COOL authority summary and economic analysis^[1].
• Courts: whether a wolf delisting proposal follows, and whether the conservation groups sue as they say they will^[9].