It's no joke: if you look at what we export vs. what we import, you find that the U.S. economy is not that different from many third-world countries. We're good at exporting grain, but we import most of our high technology. We're great at exporting beef, but we have to import our automobiles because U.S. auto makers can't compete in terms of quality. To top it off, we're great at exporting jobs, too.
But U.S. ranchers our proud that their cattle are raised on U.S. soil. That's something to be really proud of, too: cruelly raising large numbers of mammals for nothing more than their body parts. Subjecting them to inhumane conditions, pumping them full of hormones and drugs, feeding them chicken litter, slaughtering them by the millions, and all without a single care for the experience of the cows which are living, breathing creatures that feel pain. Baby cows have mothers, too, you know, and you can call it "beef" or "steak" but in fact, these are cow parts.
If beef is really "American," then that says something rather frightening about our country: we'll do anything for profit, even slaughtering innocent animals by the tens of millions.