Yesterday’s BeefBuzz featured Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays talking with the president and CEO of the United States Meat Export Federation, Dan Halstrom, about the U.S. beef export market in 2024, and what he sees for 2025. Today, they are discussing what Trump’s second term in office might mean to the meat export industry.
President-elect Trump has spoken of plans to add significant tariffs to Canada, Mexico, China, and other countries around the world, in the name of negotiation to leverage the U.S. back to power in global markets.
While many in the export business cringe at the thought of tariffs, Halstrom observed a different outcome of Trump’s imposed tariffs during his first term in office citing three existing agreements.
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) entered into force on July 1, 2020. The USMCA, which replaced the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), created more balanced, reciprocal trade supporting high-paying jobs for Americans and growing the North American economy.
The Agriculture Chapter of the China Phase 1 agreement addresses structural barriers to trade and will support a dramatic expansion of U.S. food, agriculture and seafood product exports, increasing American farm and fishery income, generating more rural economic activity, and promoting job growth. A multitude of non-tariff barriers to U.S. agriculture and seafood products are addressed, including for meat, poultry, seafood, rice, dairy, infant formula, horticultural products, animal feed and feed additives, pet food, and products of agriculture biotechnology. It was integral in the U.S.’s record-setting export numbers of 2022 which included more than $2 billion in trade to China. For context, exports to China totaled $200 million three years prior, so the resulting increase was exponential.
Halstom highlighted the third agreement that Trump was involved in in his first term. The U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement, instituted in 2020, enables American producers to compete more effectively with countries that currently have preferential tariffs in the Japanese market. It provided market access to American farmers, ranchers, and agribusinesses for high-quality U.S. food and agricultural products to 127 million Japanese consumers.
In the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement, Japan committed to providing substantial market access to American food and agricultural products by eliminating tariffs, enacting meaningful tariff reductions, or allowing a specific quantity of imports at a low duty (generally zero). Importantly, the tariff treatment for the products covered in the agreement matches the tariffs that Japan provided preferentially to countries in the CP-TPP agreement.
“It was volatile, but in the end, these are still paying dividends today,” Halstrom said. “We are hopeful going forward with the second Trump administration that we will see more of the same. Number one that they will support the agreements that were theirs to begin with. Number two, I think there is an appreciation there that maybe they don’t get enough credit for, of supporting ag. It’ll be bumpy, probably, but anymore, our business is bumpy anyway.”
Hays and Halstrom went on to discuss variable demand for variety meats such as tripe and beef tongue in domestic and global markets. Click the listen bar at the top of the page to hear the complete conversation.
Hays brought up how USDA’s proposed Fairness Rule would impact global trade in a market where U.S. quality is in high demand. Halstrom said that he has noticed a shift in the past four or five years to foreign markets being willing to pay more for quality products.
When herd rebuilding begins, Halstrom anticipates a reduction in available products. “The question we have been getting is not ‘Why are prices so high?’ The question we have been getting from customers, whether they are in Central America or Japan or Mexico, is, ‘When will this cycle turn so we will have more animals because we need more volume?’”
He said that fifteen or twenty years ago, high prices meant rejected sales, but those days ended in favor of high-quality American meat.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
