Agricultural Entrepreneur Chad Tentinger: Higher Tariffs May Lift Cattle Farmers

Tariff skeptics are plentiful these days. Chad Tentinger is not one of them. Tentinger is a lifelong cattle farmer from northwest Iowa and an agricultural entrepreneur. He thinks the “Trump 2.0” tariffs could help level a playing field that has long been skewed against American farmers.

Every side of Tentinger’s professional life involves cattle: he raises them, designs and builds barns for them (TenCorp, Inc.), founded a cattle cooperative (Legacy Beef Co-op), and is developing a $500-600 million beef processing plant in western Iowa.

Helping smaller cattle producers survive and ultimately grow is central to his personal and professional mission. Tariffs, he believes, can eventually help.

“The tariffs that are on our product going to other countries is high, you know, and they (other countries) play games with it all the time. It seems like…China plays a lot of games,” Tentinger told American Farmland Owner from his office in Des Moines, Iowa.

For Tentinger, the imbalance isn’t theoretical; it is something he sees firsthand. “In the beef side, we import a lot of lower cuts of beef into this country. And then, if we try to go back to those countries with our product, tariffs are high. I’m not saying we should go crazy on the tariffs, but certainly even out the playing field.”

Chad Tentinger bio

• Fourth-generation cattle farmer – Marcus, Iowa

• TenCorp, Inc. – President

• Legacy Beef Co-Op – Founder

• Cattlemen’s Heritage Beef Corporation – Principal Developer

 This concept of “reciprocal tariffs” is at the heart of Tentinger’s argument. If American farmers can’t access foreign markets at fair rates, why should those same countries enjoy tariff-free access to the U.S. market?

Foreign Tariffs Impact U.S. Beef Industry

“In agriculture, we’re lopsided,” he said. “Over the last four years, it got really lopsided on the beef trade. It was the most lopsided it’s ever been,” Tentinger said.

Tentinger believes that part of the solution lies in recognizing the unique advantages American farmers bring to the table: efficiency and sustainability. “The U.S. farmer is the most efficient farmer on the planet,” he said. “Nobody in the world is more sustainable. Nobody’s more efficient.”

He illustrated this with a real-world example from Iowa: “I feed cattle in a barn. My footprint per animal is very small. I use that cattle manure as fertilizer. I don’t buy any commercial fertilizer. That acre of corn will produce more feedstuff than the cattle it took to produce the manure. How can you get a better cycle than that?”

Cattle Producer Feels Limited by Foreign Countries

Yet despite such innovation, American producers often find themselves undercut. Tentinger pointed to countries like Brazil and Australia, which export lower-quality cuts of meat to the U.S.

“One could argue to keep prices lower, you ship all that meat in here because it’s lower quality. And it’s cheaper,” he said. “Well, that’s only really good if we have access back with our high-quality cuts into those same markets.”

Without that reciprocity, the long-term implications could be dire. “Those things hurt our family farms,” Tentinger warned. “It should change.”

RELATED: Cliff Kupchan, Chairman of Eurasia Group, told American Farmland Owner earlier this year that the world sorely needs a true leader. 

Increased Tariffs Could Cause Financial Difficulties for Some Producers

Critics often argue that tariffs create short-term pain, and Tentinger doesn’t dismiss those concerns. “Short term, it could be challenging for folks…fair,” he acknowledged.

But in his view, the long game matters more. “I’d rather go through a few-year cycle where it’s tough and fix the problem permanently.”

He urges patience and perspective. “Let’s give it six months to a year and see what comes out of it. Hopefully, it’s a lot better,” he said.

“The last decade we’ve been rattling markets nonstop. And it’s hard for me to say that producers are going to go out of business because of a policy enacted in the last three months, considering how many went out of business in the last decade. What caused that? Unfair practices.”

Tentinger also pushed back against criticisms of manufacturing tariffs, especially in the context of global labor standards. A transition to a different type of workforce is on the way, he thinks. “Let’s not pretend like it’s the 1940s and 1950s where these factories are going to take thousands of people. It’s going to be robotics. Very efficient, robotic-driven factories. And I think it’s disingenuous for us to sit over here and say we love these cheap products, knowing full well it’s basically slave labor in most of these countries.”

Ultimately, Tentinger believes that fair trade and fair labor must go hand in hand. “Pick a lane you want to be in,” he said. “But I’m not for slave labor, and I also think we owe it to our country to support American-made.”

RELATED: Interest rates have challenged cattle producers as they try to grow the herd.