Who's gonna eat it?

Meat is piling up in U.S. cold-storage warehouses, fueled by a surge in supplies and trade disputes that are eroding demand.

Federal data, coming as early as Monday, are expected to show a record level of beef, pork, poultry and turkey being stockpiled in U.S. facilities, rising above 2.5 billion pounds, agricultural analysts said.

[...]

The strengthening U.S. economy has boosted domestic consumers’ appetite for meat, and rising incomes in Asia and Latin America fueled increasing meat demand abroad.

Farmers, ranchers and meatpackers rushed to fill that demand, building new barns for poultry and livestock to supply new chicken and pork plants across the U.S. South and Midwest.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects the industry will produce a record 102.7 billion pounds of meat this year.

[...]

U.S. consumers’ appetite for meat is growing, but not fast enough to keep up with record production of hogs and chickens. That leaves the U.S. meat industry increasingly reliant on exports, but Mexico and China—among the largest foreign buyers of U.S. meat—have both set tariffs on U.S. pork products in response to U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum and other goods.

[...]

“We are packed full,” said Joe Rumsey, president of Arkansas-based Zero Mountain Inc.

  WSJ

Maybe Americans can afford steak again.

“The more you store, chances are you’re going to have to export more of it,” said Altin Kalo, a commodity analyst with Steiner Consulting Group. “Even with the tariffs, there’s only a certain amount of product you can shift into the domestic channels.”

Eventually, they'll feed it to immigrant detainees or back to the livestock and mad cow disease will rise up again.

Growing meat stockpiles may bring down prices for meat-hungry U.S. consumers, along with restaurants and retailers. But slowing overseas sales and rising domestic stockpiles threaten profit for meat processors and prices for livestock and poultry producers. Since the end of May, prices of lean hog futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have dropped 14%.

[...]

Meanwhile, some analysts said, pork processors recently have reduced some hours at plants, and some plants even have turned away hogs, Ms. McCracken said.

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The Trump administration recognizes the financial hardship livestock producers could face as a result of retaliatory tariffs, and farm country will be better off under new trade deals the administration is pursuing, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue has said.

The USDA has examined drawing upon Depression-era programs that permit borrowing of as much as $30 billion from the Treasury as a way to compensate farmers for tariff-driven price declines, and Mr. Perdue has said he aims to have a plan ready by this fall.

I suppose that's why Trump is off on an agriculture tour this week. Too bad he won't be able to stay on topic and will revert to his best hits from his 2016 campaign.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 7/24: