Trump Frees Ranchers to Process, Sell Own 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 at the signing. He joked that he would need security for taking on the packers: "They're not going to be happy when they hear this. I don't know who they are, but they're going to be coming at me at different angles."

Rollins said the country has lost 600,000 ranchers since 1980. "We cannot continue freedom in America without those who feed us and fuel us," she said. "And so today, the signal to our ranchers, the signal to rural America, but really the signal to the world is that American ranching and American farmers are back."

Hunter Nation founder and CEO Keith Mark called the wolf order "the first step to restore common sense, respect for real science, and return wildlife management back where it belongs — to each state and the people who live closest to the land," and called it "the biggest policy win for hunters in decades."

Cattle producers have not been uniformly happy. When the import window was announced, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association said "flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd."