Bacon - a two-fer

Looks like the Chinese are hitting us where it hurts. Two from Reuters:

First, from yesterday, April 12th, 2020:

Smithfield shutting U.S. pork plant indefinitely, warns of meat shortages during pandemic
Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, said on Sunday it will shut a U.S. plant indefinitely due to a rash of coronavirus cases among employees and warned the country was moving “perilously close to the edge” in supplies for grocers.

Slaughterhouse shutdowns are disrupting the U.S. food supply chain, crimping availability of meat at retail stores and leaving farmers without outlets for their livestock.

Second, from November 5th, 2019:

At Smithfield Foods' slaughterhouse, China brings home U.S. bacon
Smithfield Foods’ slaughterhouse in Virginia used to carve up pork for American sandwiches and holiday dinners. But workers now box up pig carcasses to ship to China, according to employees, local officials and industry sources.

The transformation at the Smithfield, Virginia, plant shows how the global meat industry is adapting to profit from African swine fever, a fatal pig disease that has killed millions of hogs in China and turned the world’s top pork consumer into a major meat importer.

Bought by China’s WH Group Ltd (0288.HK) six years ago for $4.7 billion, Smithfield Foods has retooled U.S. processing operations to direct meat to China, which produced half the world’s pork before swine fever decimated the industry.

Emphsis mine - again: "Bought by China’s WH Group Ltd (0288.HK) six years ago for $4.7 billion"

You heard it correctly, Smithfield Foods has been wholly owned by the Chinese Communists for the last seven years. Time to get it back into US hands. Let them buy pork at our market prices.