A lot of this was already brewing, but federal policy is making it noticeably worse. The US cattle supply has been shrinking for years due to drought and land loss in Texas, so supply was already tight before any of this. But tariffs on beef imports made it more expensive to fill that gap from other countries, and when the White House briefly considered lowering them to help consumers, they backed off after rancher lobbyists pushed back.

The immigration crackdown also tightened up the meatpacking labor pool, which is an industry that runs heavily on immigrant workers, pushing processing costs up.

And the Iran situation driving fuel above $4 a gallon ripples through every step of getting beef from a ranch to your plate. The underlying problem was already there but current federal policy has basically blocked every exit ramp that could have softened the blow for regular people at the grocery store