President Donald Trump’s plan to allow 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef into the United States tariff-free for 90 days is drawing fierce backlash from U.S. ranchers, agriculture groups and some fellow Republicans, even as the administration says the move is intended to lower prices for consumers.

Ground beef prices have climbed sharply. A pound cost an average of $6.89 in July, according to government data, up more than 50% from five years ago.

Trump announced last week on Truth Social that “for the next 90 days, the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out of quota tariff. We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.”

Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau, posted Wednesday on social media that “the President’s plan to facilitate record imports of beef will have a significant impact on farmers and ranchers who are rebuilding their herds devastated by droughts.” He added that it “will undermine America’s ranchers” and said he urges “the President to reconsider his plan to flood the market with foreign beef.”

In an interview with Spectrum News on Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins defended the plan as a short-term measure to help consumers, particularly lower-income Americans, though she said she was not fully briefed on key details.

Asked which countries would supply the imported beef, Rollins said, “I will be very transparent in that is over at (the office of) U.S. Trade Rep. I am actually not part of any of those conversations, so I am not sure what that looks like. I think we’ll know very soon.”

Rollins said the administration sees the plan as a temporary response to high prices.

“There’s a lot of ground beef that’s sitting in other countries that would potentially help serve Americans, especially lower-income Americans who really lean into — ‘lean into’ — the lean ground beef,” she said. “And so this is a very short-term fix from the president’s perspective, that he believed necessary to get lower cost beef onto American plates.”

Amanda and Reid Hall, cattle producers in Kentucky, said the policy will not help rebuild the nation’s herd because raising a calf is a 10-year cycle. Since Trump’s announcement, the market price for cows has fallen by $200 to $300 per head, just as the Halls were preparing to sell a herd of 70 cows.

“The demand is there,” Amanda Hall said. “But when you have policies that are coming in and undercutting our price, I mean, you’re messing with farmers here who, that’s their only paycheck that they get for the entire year, and they were banking on it.”

The criticism has also come from Republican lawmakers.

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 Senate Republican, posted, “Americans want US beef on the table — not foreign imports.”

Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote: “I have advised the President against this ill-advised action in the past and I now urge him to reconsider.”