The imbalance within this industry illustrates the broader trade issues that leave the U.S. at a disadvantage. //

The U.S. has had a free trade agreement with Australia for 20 years. In that time, Australia has sold $28.7 billion of beef to U.S. consumers, but fresh U.S. beef has been banned for sale there. //

“Australia has used a myriad of sanitary concerns and endless bureaucratic red tape to delay the approval of U.S. beef even though the United States is internationally recognized as having some of the highest food safety and animal health standards in the world,” the NCBA wrote in a statement to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. “For the past few years, we have been told by the Australian government that we are in the final stages of approval, yet we continue to see delays … If the Australians will not accept our beef products, then it is only fair that we reciprocate.” //

In the past five years, Brazil has sold $4.45 billion of beef in the U.S., but Brazil has placed many non-tariff restrictions on U.S. beef. In the same time frame, the U.S. has sold $21 million of beef to Brazil. Like Australia, we are comparing billions in imports to millions in exports.

The staggering $4.3 billion beef trade deficit with Brazil is concerning, but NCBA says it is more worried about something else: importing meat contaminated with foot-and-mouth disease as well as mad cow disease, known scientifically as atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

In November 2021, then-Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack received a letter from the NCBA warning that Brazil took “several weeks” to report two cases to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), while most countries report BSE within hours or days. //

In 2003, China and other countries banned the import of U.S. beef after the U.S. found a case of BSE. The USDA worked to restore the market and in 2016 the Chinese market started to reopen under President Barack Obama, but with heavy non-tariff trade restrictions.

The first shipment of beef was in 2017, under Trump, after the U.S.-China 100-Day Action Plan removed many restrictions, and China recognized the authority of the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service (FISA). China became a $2 billion a year market for U.S. beef.

In the 2020 Phase One Agreement, China promised to “conduct a risk assessment” for ractopamine, a growth additive in cattle and swine feed allowed in the U.S. but banned or restricted in some countries. It has accepted swine with ractopamine but the agreement is not specific about beef.

China started to reject beef shipments if it detected any ractopamine, and banned further shipments from beef processing plants and cold storage facilities that sent such beef.

That $2 billion market is now effectively closed, //

“The United States is a prized market for beef sales,” according to the NCBA comments. “Developing countries like Paraguay and Colombia see market access to the U.S. as an endorsement of their product and that is why beef access has been a top policy goal for these governments. Brazil and Paraguay were granted access under highly questionable conditions, and we do not want the U.S. government to continue using beef access as trade bait with South American countries, including Colombia.”

Biden granted Paraguay permission in 2023 to sell fresh beef in the U.S., and Colombia is waiting for access to the U.S. beef market. Both countries have had foot-and-mouth disease, which has been eradicated from the U.S since 1929.