Whiskey & Donuts
Whiskey & Donuts is where sharp analysis - and maybe a shot or two of speculation - meets unfiltered conversation, tackling politics, culture, and the issues that matter with a mix of logic, humor, and straight talk. No echo chambers, no nonsense -just real discussions with a side of wit and a strong pour of common sense.
Whiskey & Donuts
The Beef Beef
China just cut off U.S. beef imports - starting with Tyson - and might pause them all. Surprise twist? China’s our third-largest beef buyer. That’s a gut punch for American producers and a potential gift to Australia and Brazil, who are ready to swoop in. We talk about what this might mean for your steak prices, why 90-day disruptions aren't the whole story for most businesses, and whether this is bold strategy or economic self-sabotage. (Recorded April 16, 2025)
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getting some beef. So hello again and welcome everyone to another edition of whiskey and donuts. I am your host, trey Scott, here with my always calm young friend, john Mack. How's it going, man, hey?
Speaker 2:good to see you again. I like that.
Speaker 1:Young man. John, we got to talk some beef man. There is a new beef beef that is kind of taking over the internet. I'm not sure how much you know about this yet, but we're talking literal beef and we got beef with China. Why we got beef with China? Because apparently earlier this month China has suspended imports of US beef from Tyson Foods and then is talking about pausing all imports of US beef. That's kind of a big deal, because do you know what I found out? And I mean I know that China is like the nation that's the largest population in the world. Right, I had no idea that they were our third biggest buyer of beef, that they buy the third most us beef of any other nation in the world. Did you know that?
Speaker 1:I did not know that you you just informed me of it right this moment. It caught me off guard man to find that out, and so obviously there are other places China can get beef, whether it's Brazil, argentina, australia but where are we going to sell beef? That's kind of a big deal, and so I happened to Australia Argentina.
Speaker 1:And I wondered about that. I wondered, okay, would Australia sell more of their native beef and then have us do like the backfill? And the reality is that Australians, as it turns out, happen to be pretty snobby about their beef.
Speaker 2:How dare they was my first thought, americans are also snobby about their beef.
Speaker 1:As we should be Right. So, finding that out, I was like man, what are we going to do? I don't know. This is like like john, you know where I stand, man, I'm like this. The whole trade war thing just does not feel well thought out, which goes to my first.
Speaker 2:I think it's more thought out than you thought it was other than you think it is.
Speaker 1:These other pieces kind of keep falling, because what happened is that all of a sudden the pause came in, which obviously had to happen for electronics and things like that, right, so again we come up with a sledgehammer. Then it's like oops, we didn't really mean to use that sledgehammer, the number seven sledgehammer. We meant to use the number six sledgehammer.
Speaker 2:Well, and we talked a little bit about this online I view it different than you view it. I think some of your followers on Facebook view it a little bit more along the lines that I view it. I don't know if none of this was ever intended to happen. I kind of think some of it was intended to happen. None of this was ever intended to happen. I kind of think some of it was intended to happen.
Speaker 2:And if you go back and listen to the things that the orange man said, the scary orange man kind of alluded that things are going to get kind of bad before they get better, but they need to get bad before they get better. And the people that voted for him kind of I expected it. No-transcript Right. I mean, it's way bigger than that. So where we're at now trying to fix it's going to suck. But he's not the one that put us in this position.
Speaker 2:Prior administrations over the last 30, 40 years are the ones that put us in this position. He's doing going to fix it. I don't know. Time will tell, and me and you've talked about that before but I don't know if four months is enough time to unfuck 50 years. You know what I mean. So I think some of this stuff is is to be expected, and, of course, the rest of the world. They're gonna react the way that they're reacting because they're just used to taking advantage of the trade with the united states and they're used to getting what they want and charging us what they want and screwing us however they want. And, and prior administrations, even the last trump administration, let him do it. You know what I mean. And he didn't change anything in the trades then. So you know, I think the $36 trillion makes people look at the world a little bit different and, and I think trying to fix that isn't a bad idea. So it'll work or it won't.
Speaker 1:You know what's interesting about that? That number. We talk about this trade deficit. Someone else mentioned this to me recently and I can't tell you exactly where I heard it I'll have to go back and look that up but they said that we talk about durables and we talk about goods and services and things like that, but we never talk about digital services in this thing. And so his position was that, given the digital servicing that we outsource or what have you, that that ends up sort of reducing that seeming imbalance by a tremendous amount.
Speaker 2:Have you heard anything like that, or do you kind of I haven't, but you, you're following this, this whole tariff thing, way closer than I am, because because you feel different about it than I do. So to me you know, and we talked about this on one of the other episodes. Listen, the stock market doesn't, it doesn't change my day to day life. You know what I mean. Listen, the stock market doesn't change my day-to-day life. You know what I mean. If the Dow goes up $500 or the Dow goes down $500, I don't lose any money. It makes no difference to me.
Speaker 2:I'm not a day trader. So does it hurt my long-term investments? No, because long-term investments are long-term investments. I'm not looking at it day to day, right? So I have to look at what little I've invested. How is it going to be in 15 years? Is the stock market going to continue to go up over the next 15 years, and chances are it probably is. Are interest rates going to go down lower over the next couple of years and make things more affordable for me? Probably, oils down, gold's up. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So I don't know, like some of the things that you're worrying about, about this tariff war, I don't. I guess you're worried about whether or not China has a pound of beef in their grocery store. I don't give a shit if China has a pound of beef in their grocery store. I don't give a shit if China has a pound of beef in their grocery store. It makes no difference to me and, like I said earlier to you, I'd rather my $70 steak cost me $45. So if it's more supply here and less demand and my prices go down for beef, okay, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2:I don't care but people, you know, people have a hard time with that because they, you know they look at the economics of this world different than I do the global.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, I want those big markets and I want, I want, I want as many people having access to american products as possible but if it doesn't benefit us, why, what, what, what?
Speaker 2:that would be like if you had all the widgets in the world and you were the only one supplying widgets to the world and then one day you were like man, I just want to quit selling widgets. Then, okay, so that affects you world. But like, why does? Why does this? Why does china buying our beef? I understand that there's a third biggest person in the our community in the world that's buying our, our product. But why? Somebody else is going to buy beef. You know, like I don't, so so they drop to number 10, like I don't. Okay, so they'll pay more for beef someplace else, because they're not going to get the same deals that they're getting from America, because they're not going to be able to charge the tariffs to other countries the same way they charge it to America. So they're going, they're going to have to pay more, right, if they go to Australia. Like, like you just said, australia is snobby about their beef. Obviously, if they're snobby about it, they're going to charge more for it if it's a better product.
Speaker 1:Let's say that just as an example, just as a. This is purely hypothetical, because this could all be over in 90 days, right, or tomorrow, or tomorrow. In 90 days, right or tomorrow or tomorrow. If we close off a significant portion of global markets to American products, that's going to eventually tampen down the ability of the. If our current I looked up the number let's just say 1 million metric tons I don't remember what the exact number be 12 million or something like that Right Then our overall productivity in that particular market is going to go down because our sole demand won't be able to keep up with that.
Speaker 1:And then other places like we mentioned, the Argentina, the Brazil, the Australia Australia is actually a good partner for China because it's much closer than we are, but it will enable them to ramp up their production. So then Australia becomes more of a known in the beef market. Essentially shrink an American industry and then allow an Australian industry to grow and replace what we used to be. And so I'm not. I mean I understand you're saying that individually or on a micro scale that we'll be okay with that because you know that'll mean should mean cheaper beef here in the US. But if this hypothetical were to play out, you would also have fewer beef-related jobs in the US, and we don't want that.
Speaker 2:So do you think this is going to last forever, though? I hope not. That's the question.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I don't think that, john. I don't think that. But what I'm hearing from some people who actually are in the beef industry even by that I mean, I've got one farmer friend here and what their belief is is that this is going to impact those small farms a lot. That's what they're being told.
Speaker 2:Or expressing, I should say, not being told, but it depends on how long it lasts. Yeah, Right, Like 90 days isn't going to kill any one business, and I know that because I've owned businesses for a long time and and like we talked about the, what my income's been over the last two solid years at least. So does it suck? 100% it sucks, Do I do? I wish that things were as good as they were seven, eight years ago. 100% I do, but they're not. And and you deal with it, I haven't lost anything, you know things just get tighter. So 90 days, like I don't even like 90 days, I don't even worry about 90 days in a business. Like you know, I don't. I look at my, the business that we just purchased, like a year and a half ago, and I look at 90 days in that business. If I looked at just those 90 days, if I paid attention to the weekends within that 90 days, I think I'd give myself a freaking heart attack.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, because a lot happens in one weekend in that business.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, you know what I mean, because a lot happens in one weekend in that business. I could make like 10 grand on a Saturday and be like woohoo, and then tomorrow make zero that next Sunday and I'm like what the heck? You know what I mean Like how did that even happen? And then go the next three weekends and make a couple hundred bucks. And then go the next three weekends and make a couple hundred bucks. But if I look at that over that 90 days right as a whole, my weekends average out. So I don't know. I mean, I'm not in the beef industry, so I don't know. If farmers are telling you around the country that they're going to lose their farm in 90 days, I would have to say that they were probably already losing their farm before this 90 days hit.
Speaker 1:I'm hoping that there will be some relief for them if that squeeze does begin to be felt pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:So that's all I would say. If it lasted a year, you know, you would probably start to see. I would have to say that it would be directly related to the situation you're talking about. If, a year from now, farmers are losing their farms and cattle because this continued for a whole year, but 90 days, I don't see anybody losing a business in 90 days that wasn't already losing their business. That's my take on it as a business owner, not that I'm a world-renowned business owner.
Speaker 1:You're pretty renowned, though, john.
Speaker 2:My wife says I'm a pretty big deal.