WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday signed a pair of executive orders aimed at U.S. cattle ranchers, directing the Agriculture Department to build a program letting them slaughter their own livestock and sell beef directly to consumers across state lines, and giving Interior Secretary Doug Burgum 90 days to weigh removing grey and Mexican wolves from the federal endangered-species list.

The two orders address two long-standing rancher complaints: the market power of the Big Four meatpackers — Tyson Foods, JBS USA, Cargill and National Beef Packing Co. — that dominate U.S. slaughter, and the federal protections on wolves that ranchers say prey on their herds. U.S. livestock inventories sit at a 75-year low even as domestic beef demand has risen 10 percent over the past decade, according to the order.

The direct-sale order

The first order instructs the Agriculture Department to create "a program where small and medium-sized and large ranchers can sell their products directly to consumers," Trump said at an Oval Office signing ceremony, bypassing the four packers he called a monopoly. A companion measure requires country-of-origin labeling on foreign beef.

"My administration has taken historic action to help our nation’s great cattle ranchers and deliver American meat processing to the highest standard," Trump said. He said USDA would streamline health rules governing on-ranch slaughter for interstate sale while imposing "very strong safety inspections."

Trump singled out the packers by name and said two of the four are based in Brazil. Of the ranchers, he said, "You do it cleaner than these four monopolies, two of which are based in Brazil." Of the packers: "they cost our ranchers a lot of money and they cost the public a lot of money and grief."

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the United States has lost 600,000 ranchers since 1980. "We cannot continue freedom in America without those who feed us and fuel us," she said.

The wolf order

The second order does not immediately authorize ranchers to shoot wolves. It gives Burgum 90 days to determine whether grey and Mexican wolf populations have recovered enough to come off the endangered list. There were 319 Mexican wolves in the U.S. wild in 2025, up from four when the subspecies was reintroduced in 1998, according to Fish and Wildlife Service figures cited by the BBC; roughly 18,000 grey wolves live across the country. Ranchers play a "vital role" in the food supply, the order said, and "More can and should be done to support this critical industry."

The counterpoint

Conservation groups said the wolf order solves a problem the current system already handles. The Wolf Conservation Center noted that ranchers are entitled to up to 100 percent compensation for livestock losses caused by wolves under existing state programs, and pointed to studies showing wolf attacks have little effect on ranch income. Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds Project, told the BBC the order is "a huge distraction to placate a handful of ranchers and make them believe that wolves are a greater threat than President Trump’s own policies." A 2022 federal attempt to delist grey wolves became tied up in litigation, and campaigners have said they will sue again if Interior acts on Trump's order.

Burgum's 90-day window closes in early December.