President Trump’s plan to import 300,000 metric tons on tariff-free ground beef into the U.S. has rankled Montana politicians and those running for office.

Sen. Tim Sheehy, a Republican, broke ranks with the president over the announcement last week.

“I’ve advised President Trump against this course of action for a year because American ranchers have been struggling against the packer monopoly for decades, and this will further harm them - most of whom are MAGA Republicans,” Sheehy said in a post on X. “The President’s heart is in the right place on wanting lower prices for the American people, and beef prices have been impacted by the Mexican screwworm. But the reality is this action will make it more difficult for American ranchers to rebuild our herd and bring prices down for the American people. And most importantly, this will harm our ranching families who feed the nation.”

Beef prices have surged in the past few years and a good steak in Montana starts at about $11 to $12 a pound and goes up from there.

Seth Bodnar, the independent candidate for Montana’s open Senate seat, blasted the announcement and his Republican opponent, Kurt Alme.

“Washington, D.C.’s plan to flood our market with 660 million pounds of foreign beef is a short-sighted political stunt that undercuts the Montana ranchers who raise the best beef in the world. As Montana’s Independent voice in the U.S. Senate, I will push to immediately pass the bipartisan American Beef Labeling Act and reinstate mandatory country-of-origin labeling, because Montana producers deserve a fair shake and consumers deserve to know exactly where their meat is coming from,” Bodnar said in a release. “One thing I’ll never do is bury my head in the sand and abandon Montana ranchers because it’s politically convenient, which is exactly what Kurt Alme is doing right now when he stays silent to appease his political bosses in D.C.”

The Montana Farm Bureau also criticized the measure.

“As a rancher I am extremely disappointed in President Trump’s proclamation to drop tariffs on imported beef. It will certainly affect prices paid to the rancher but I’m not so sure it will reduce the price paid by consumers,” Casey Mott, Montana Farm Bureau vice president said in a release last week. “The prices Montana ranchers have received for their cattle have been good recently. Those good prices finally provided us with the ability to catch up financially because the inputs for raising beef have increased $400 per animal from 2020; that’s nearly 30 percent. That means we must make that much more to break even. Everything we put into raising that beef has increased, including the cost of hay, leased pasture, pickup trucks, tractors and equipment. Even the cost of our groceries has increased, and diesel prices have skyrocketed. I don’t see any of our costs decreasing. 

“Dropping the tariffs on imported beef certainly will have a huge negative impact on the feeder cattle market.”

Mott noted it couldn’t have come at a worse time either, as ranchers typically sell their cattle in September and October.

Cattle futures were  down 45 cents to $1.30 as a result of the Trump announcement last week.

Senatorial candidates Alani Bankhead, a Democrat, and Kurt Alme, a Republican, did not respond to a request for comment.