In today’s Beef Buzz, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays speaks with Kent Bacus, Executive Director of Government Affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), who raised strong concerns about Brazilian beef imports during testimony before the U.S. International Trade Commission. “When it comes to Brazil, we’ve got a long-standing list of concerns. This 301 investigation was really an opportunity to discuss a lot of Brazil’s unfair trade practices.”
Bacus pointed to the significant trade imbalance between the two countries. “Over the last five years, Brazil has sold upwards of four and a half billion dollars worth of beef to the U.S. market. And even this year, in the first six months, it’s well over a billion dollars into the U.S. market. And the sad thing is, for us, we’ve only been able to sell about $21 million into their market over the last five years.” He added that this was not from lack of demand but from “rigorous requirements completely unjustified just to try to access that market.”
Beyond trade barriers, Bacus highlighted food safety concerns. “If you look at the food safety concerns, the fact that the USDA had to suspend them for over a year back in 2017, if you look at the multiple atypical BSE cases that Brazil failed to report for weeks, months and years at a time, that’s completely out of bounds and completely inconsistent with their international trade requirements.” He stressed that NCBA has long called for the suspension of Brazilian imports when safety issues arise.
The organization’s message at the hearing was direct. “Unfortunately, what they tell us and their actions are not aligned, and I think that’s why we need to suspend their imports into the U.S. market until we can really account for those safeguards.” Bacus emphasized that Brazil remains “the one country with the most inconsistencies,” and that U.S. producers and consumers deserve better protections.
While recent tariff increases that top 76% on Brazilian beef have been a step forward, Bacus said they are not enough. “We think that’s the beginning. We think that’s a good start. What ultimately is going to need to happen is we’re going to need to see their access suspended. We think that’s the only way that it’s really going to deliver the message that they need to clean up their act, they need to be more transparent, they need to be more accountable, and that it is a privilege, not a right, to do business here in the United States.”
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.
