The Trump administration’s strategy for warding off a flesh-eating pest threatening the American beef industry is rapidly losing allies.
Closing the southern border to Mexican livestock imports last year became a pillar of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ effort to slow the northward advance of the New World screwworm while the Trump administration weathered criticism over high beef prices.
The move won Rollins praise at the time, but now that the Agriculture Department has confirmed 35 cases in Texas and New Mexico, ranchers and beef producers are pushing her to open up.
Rollins, a Texan, has cast herself as a defender of ranchers’ interests as the industry struggles with drought and economic factors that have shrunk the U.S. herd size to a 75-year low.
