When it comes to the price of bacon, Donald Trump is absolutely right: It’s too much. When he brings up the issue during the campaign, he doesn’t tell you what it is—which is Very – that while he was in the White House, we were having rapid growth.
In 2018, 61% of California voters passed Proposition 12, which required space for breeding pigs and their offspring to be raised to a new standard—which only 4% of pork suppliers were able to meet at the time. Essentially, the industry had to choose between spending the money to meet the new requirements or risk losing the country’s most populous state as a customer.
The industry challenged the constitutionality of the new law. In 2023 the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of California, and This law came into full effect about a year agoThe two judges in its favor were selected by Trump.
“Although the Constitution contemplates many important issues, what kinds of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote.
California’s law isn’t the only reason bacon is so expensive. Trump’s initial handling of the pandemic is also a factor.
On February 7, 2020, Trump was interviewed by journalist Bob Woodward after speaking with the President of China. The former president said in the recording“It’s airborne, Bob. It’s always more difficult than touch. You know, touch – you don’t have to touch things, right? But air, you just breathe in the air. That’s how it gets out. And so it’s very tricky. It’s very delicate. It’s more deadly than your – you know, your – even your worst flu.”
Yet on February 10, he told the nation that “many people think this problem will be over in April.”
By ‘that’ he meant Covid-19.
On March 30, he reiterated: “Stay calm. It will go away.”
He later told Woodward: “I always wanted to downplay it. I still prefer to downplay it because I don’t want to create panic.”
This wishful thinking was not an effective prevention strategy.
In April 2020, two of the nation’s largest meat processors — Tyson and Smithfield — were forced to shut down their plants because their workers were getting sick.
As late as August 31 of that year, Trump was still telling the country: “This is going to end.” (Update four years later: it’s not over,
But in 2020, thousands were dying every day, supply chains were down, and thousands of pigs were being slaughtered because of plant closures. Have you ever seen big businesses just lose revenue? We know that’s usually passed on to consumers, unless competition keeps prices reasonable. When Proposition 12 passed in 2018, four hog processing companies controlled 70% of the market.
And so like clockwork, the average price of a pound of bacon went from $5.83 in January 2021 to $7.31 by October. Consumers took notice. In an attempt to reach voters struggling to make ends meet, Trump has focused on the price of bacon, which can be used to attack Biden’s economic policies. He couldn’t have picked a worse example to make his case: the price of BLT is bound to fluctuate whether Trump or President Biden are in office. And it was Trump’s own handling of the pandemic that exacerbated the bacon price issues.
In April 2020, House Democrats introduced the Price Gouging Prevention Act to prevent corporate America from profiting off the pandemic, but Trump was still telling the country that “it’s about to end.” The bill did not advance due to Republican opposition. Even though Senate Democrats — including then-Senator Kamala Harris — sponsored a companion bill To match the House initiative.
We saw the same thing with gas prices. In 2022, House Democrats passed a bill that increased gas prices. Republicans in the Senate did not come forward to solve the problem faced by consumers; they wanted to ensure that Trump could campaign by complaining about gas prices.
So much for “America First,” right?
It’s pretty telling that Trump felt misleading voters about the pandemic was a better campaign strategy than winning voters over by showing we’re getting out of this pandemic. During her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Harris warned the country that Trump is not a serious person, but re-electing him would have serious consequences. His rhetoric about the price of bacon is a perfect example of this.
In March 2020, Trump himself issued an executive order aimed at curbing price gouging. Today he characterizes Harris’s call for a national price gouging ban as “communist,” even though 37 states — including states that voted for him in 2016 and 2020 — have already enacted similar bans. Trump likes to complain about current America as if he’s a fresh face with a new outlook, but he has a record we can refer to. In January 2017, bacon was $5.18 a pound. That September, when Trump was issuing “Citizenship Day” proclamations, the price of bacon had reached a then-record $6.36, and, surprisingly, he didn’t blame the White House.
That’s because naming the price of bacon didn’t look good for them then. When you look at the facts today, they still don’t look good for them.
