Reposted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/world/americas/brazil-meatpacker-jbs-trump-nyse.html
Over the past year, JBS appears to have ratcheted up its efforts to forge closer ties to those in power, courting politicians in agricultural states and announcing new investments, including plans to spend $200 million on its beef processing plants in Texas and Colorado.
“Over time, JBS has been able to find levers of influence to pull,” said Joe Maxwell, a founder of Farm Action, an advocacy group that opposes corporate monopolies in the agricultural sector. “And that has obviously put them in a good position.”
JBS started as a family-run slaughterhouse in rural Brazil in the 1950s and grew into one of the world’s most powerful food companies, with its meat products reaching some 180 countries and bringing in revenues last year of $77 billion.
But the company’s fortunes turned nearly a decade ago when it was implicated in a vast bribery scheme uncovered as part of a corruption probe known as Operation Car Wash that started in Brazil and cascaded across at least 12 countries. It toppled multinational companies and sent presidents and business executives to jail.
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