Despite some major headwinds, red meat exports have been strong this year. Industry leaders hope they can keep that momentum going into the next Administration.
“And the three in particular, USMCA, which was the redone version of NAFTA and then USMCA one and then the final USMCA. So the Trump Administration was in the middle of that, which is good for us. The Japan-U.S. agreement was also completed in 2020 and implemented, and we had very ridiculously disadvantageous beef tariffs that were normalized quickly as a result of that. And then the third thing is the China Phase One, which say what you want about China, but that really worked to our advantage in terms of making more reasonable requirements for beef plant approval. So we went from 2 or 300 million a year to China to 2 billion in just two years. Obviously, those three things work to the advantage of the U.S. beef and pork industry,” said Dan Halstrom.
Halstrom is also closely watching demand for U.S. red meat in Latin America. He says competition must be closely watched in order to maintain market shares.
