Amid growing concerns over food safety in the United States, President Donald Trump last month authorized the duty-free importation of 660 million pounds of cheap beef trimmings that will get mixed in with other cuts to make ground beef. Imported beef and pork were once labeled with their country of origin, but Congress voted in 2015 to end that requirement, so customers at the grocery store will have no way to identify this “mystery meat,” which is coming mostly from Brazil. President Trump’s proclamation in August came just a day after he met in the White House with Joesley Batista, whose family controls the Brazilian company JBS, the largest beef producer in the world. JBS is notorious for food safety violations and admitted in 2017 to bribing thousands of Brazilian officials for favorable treatment.
“It smells like a pretty corrupt deal,” says investigative journalist Eric Schlosser. He says Trump’s move is “basically screwing over American ranchers,” and the imported beef is “some of the meat most likely to be contaminated.”
Schlosser is author of the landmark book Fast Food Nation, published in 2001. He says that in the 25 years since then, the United States has developed “two food systems.” While affluent and well-educated people increasingly favor sustainable, organic foods and care deeply about how food is grown and consumed, working people and the poor are relegated to the “fast-food industrial system” of cheap, mass-produced food of dubious safety.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Democracy Now! | Radio Free (2026-09-17T12:16:54+00:00) “Fast Food Nation,” Mystery Meat & Trump’s Dismantling of U.S. Food Safety System: Eric Schlosser. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2026/09/17/fast-food-nation-mystery-meat-trumps-dismantling-of-u-s-food-safety-system-eric-schlosser/
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