On gambling and making Argentina great again

In 2004, the Detroit Pistons won the NBA Finals. They were one of the least likely champions in league history, upsetting the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, in five games, 4-1.

One of the leaders of that Pistons team was guard Chauncey Billups, who was named Finals MVP.

That same year, the Summer Olympics took place in Athens, Greece. The coach of the Pistons, Larry Brown, coached the U.S. men’s team, who was heavily favored to win the gold medal yet again.

But they were upset in the semifinal by Manu Ginobili — the greatest sixth man of all time — and Team Argentina, who would go on to win gold. The Americans would settle for bronze.

This week, both Billups and Argentina made headlines.

Billups was arrested by the FBI for his alleged connection to rigged Mafia-run poker games — complete with X-ray card tables, secret cameras and high-tech sunglasses — where hundreds of millions of dollars were stolen.

And of course, the FBI made this announcement on the opening week of the 2025-2026 NBA season.

Meanwhile, it looks like the U.S. will be sending billions of dollars to Argentina in a good old-fashioned Republican bailout. It seems as if President Trump is on a mission to make Argentina great again.

Now, that’s old news at this point. But this week, he announced his intentions to bring more foreign beef into the country because American cattle ranchers are making too much money. Cattle supply is down, but the prices are way up.

Fox News reported that the real problem facing cattle ranchers is Big Beef, which controls the beef supply chain. Some of those large corporations were sued for allegedly fixing beef prices.

But instead of going after Big Beef, Trump plans to quadruple the import of beef from Argentina, which will hurt the small cattle rancher in rural America.

He claims that “Argentina is fighting for its life.” That may be true, but that’s not our concern. What benefit is it to the average taxpayer if the U.S. throws Argentina a lifeline? Plenty of other countries are fighting for their lives.

Millions of people voted for him because he promised to put “America first.” He’s done many things to keep that promise, but he’s also gone in the complete opposite direction. It’s truly mind-boggling. He risks alienating the people who helped get him elected.

Now, the USDA did announce this week that it has a plan to strengthen the domestic cattle industry. And if I know the ranching community, I am sure they will all be on board with a so-called solution that comes straight from the federal government.

“Today, USDA will immediately expedite deregulatory reforms, boost processing capacity, including getting more locally raised beef into schools, and working across the government to fix longstanding common-sense barriers for ranchers like outdated grazing restrictions,” said Brooke Rollins, secretary of the Department of Agriculture.

But do you know what else would strengthen the domestic cattle industry? Not increasing the beef imports from Argentina by four-fold.

Trump even took the time to say that the cattle ranchers “don’t understand” that the reason they’re doing so well right now is because of his tariffs. You heard it here first, a real estate mogul from New York City knows better than farmers whose entire livelihoods revolve around cattle.

Maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt and trust the process.

It’s still early. Maybe Trump will change his tune. Or maybe by some stroke of luck, this will all work out in his favor.

But I wouldn’t bet on it.