Think of the cattle auctioneer's chant as a prayer. To the untrained ear, it's nonsense, a stream of words compressed beyond recognition. If you know what to listen for, phrases emerge from the hum and buzz: Will you go four' Will you give five' The job of the auctioneer is to whip bidders into a frenzy, selling cows, heifers, bulls, and steers at the highest price possible through the power of constant supplication. Until recently, those prayers had been answered. Feeder-cattle futures traded up through the fall, driven in part by President Donald Trump's tariffs on foreign-food imports. Beef prices reached new highs this year too. Ground-beef is up more than 50 percent compared with 2020 (and some restaurants have adjusted their menus accordingly); next year, they could be 60 percent higher than they were this September. But growing concerns about inflation and affordability seem to have forced Trump to reconsider his trade-war strategy: Ahead of Thanksgiving, he announced that he...
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