By Rachel Gabel | Commentary, Colorado Politics
President Donald Trump’s tariffs should be on the radar of every agriculture producer in the U.S. Our country is not only the top producer of beef at 12.1 million metric tons annually, but also the top importer of beef, consuming 12.7 metric tons annually. There are hundreds of other ag commodities that rely on trade, of course, but beef is on my radar.
One of the countries at the top of the beef tariff list is Australia, which is one of the countries that imports no American beef, a result of a 2003 restriction following a North American outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. Our country, however, imports $4.8 billion in Australian beef annually, making the U.S. Australia’s largest beef market.
Japan, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia and South Korea halted imports of U.S. beef in 2003. Japan reduced its U.S. beef imports to nearly zero in 2004, a huge decrease from the year prior when the U.S. boasted 46.4% of Japan’s beef imports. It has since reclaimed its market share in Japan and it’s notable it was Australia that supplied beef to Japan during the mad cow outbreak years.
U.S. beef exports to and imports from Mexico are relatively balanced, which is unusual. In 2004, Mexico was one of the few countries that didn’t restrict imports of U.S. beef. Mexico remained the country’s top importer for several years, until other countries reopened their borders to U.S. beef. In the U.S., beef carcasses were long shipped hanging and sent to processors located far from the main fat cattle supply hubs. Kenny Monfort changed that in the 1970s when he began shipping retail-ready boxed beef rather than carcasses. Adopting the boxed beef system also allows specific retail cuts to be sent to the target markets. Tongue, as I’ve written before, isn’t terribly popular here, but can add $40 per carcass when shipped to the Japanese market. After all, they can’t all be choice ribeyes. Just as that changed the U.S. beef business, when Mexico did the same in the 2000s, Mexico’s standing as a beef exporter increased and they became a bilateral trade partner with the U.S.