By Abby Finkenauer

While Americans are paying more at the grocery store and the gas pump, President Trump’s trade policies and war on Iran have made that squeeze worse. Now he is offering a supposed solution to an affordability problem his policies helped create: cheaper hamburgers. But before Americans celebrate, we should be asking what makes that beef so cheap and who else may ultimately be paying for it.

In late August, his administration announced that the United States would temporarily open its market to an additional 300,000 metric tons of imported beef at a lower tariff rate, dramatically expanding the amount of foreign beef that can enter the American market.

The timing raises a more troubling question about who is driving Trump’s economic decisions. Brazilian meatpacking JBS billionaire Joesley Batista met with Trump shortly before the change, and major meatpacking corporations stand to benefit from greater access to the American market. Corporate billionaires get the president’s ear; American ranchers, consumers, and exploited workers get the consequences.

Brazil is the world's largest beef exporter, and its cattle industry is well positioned to benefit from expanded access to the American market, even though its cattle supply chains have documented forced-labor risks. JBS is currently facing a lawsuit over this exact issue. The U.S. Department of Labor identifies cattle from Brazil as a product associated with child labor and forced labor. Brazilian beef is also separately listed for child labor. The State Department has documented exploitation in Brazilian rural industries, including ranching, that can amount to forced labor and has found that Afro-descendant and indigenous Brazilians are particularly vulnerable to this exploitation.

Americans deserve answers about where this beef comes from, who produced it, and under what conditions. But because of poor decisions in Congress, we may have a hard time getting them.

Congress repealed mandatory Country of Origin Labeling requirements for beef and pork in 2015 and companies generally are not required to tell consumers the country where an animal was raised. That lack of transparency becomes much more consequential when the federal government is actively encouraging additional imports of cheaper foreign beef.

There are many legitimate reasons beef produced in another country could cost less, from feed and land prices to exchange rates. But forced labor cannot be allowed to become a competitive advantage in the American marketplace.

American ranchers operating under U.S. labor and production standards should know whether they are competing against producers whose lower costs may be connected to exploitation. American families should be given enough information to know whether or not the meat on our store shelves came through modern-day slavery. Above all, the workers producing our food deserve basic dignity and human rights.

For years, the United States maintained expertise within our foreign policy institutions to deal with exactly these kinds of problems. State Department officials working on international labor rights engaged foreign governments, businesses, unions, and other federal agencies on labor abuses and global supply chains. U.S. trade and foreign assistance agencies documented labor abuses and promoted workers’ rights and standards.

But the Trump administration's slashing of $726 million in funds to prevent child labor, modern slavery, and workplace repression, and reorganization of significant portions of the Departments of State and Labor make it harder for the United States to bring that expertise to bear.

If American trade policy gives greater market access to products from countries with documented forced-labor problems, we need people inside our government asking hard questions about those supply chains.

The administration should disclose where the beef entering under this expanded quota comes from and explain what safeguards are being used to prevent products connected to forced or child labor from reaching American consumers. Congress should also restore meaningful mandatory country-of-origin labeling for beef so consumers know where the beef they are buying is coming from.

The next administration will inherit a State Department in need of rebuilding. Human and labor rights should be central to that work, including the expertise necessary to investigate forced labor, engage foreign governments and businesses, and protect the integrity of the supply chains. Those capabilities matter to American workers, farmers, and businesses.

For many Americans, foreign policy can feel distant from everyday life, but it remains closer than we think. A decision involving workers on a cattle ranch in Brazil doesn’t just affect an American rancher or what ends up on your grill. It touches upon a more fundamental question about who we are as Americans and what we are willing to accept in the goods we consume. If cheaper beef comes at the expense of another person’s freedom, safety, or dignity, that is more than an economic issue. It is a human rights issue. And we should care whether our policies help protect those rights or allow us to look the other way while people are exploited.