On Nov. 6, after the great general election, the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) held its annual strategic planning conference in Tucson, Ariz. Of course, the first topic discussed was the analysis of the election, potential impacts on agriculture policy and international trade and how it will reflect on beef and other meat.
All meats, especially U.S. beef, are getting more competitive around the world as the middle class can now afford meat as a protein.
This is occurring despite volatility and strong resistance in some major Asian markets.
The competition for U.S. pork is growing strong around the world. U.S. pork is currently exporting one-half of the pork it produces.
The USMEF forecasts U.S. pork exports will set volume and value records in 2024, surpassing three million metric tons (mt) valued at $8.63 billion, while U.S. beef exports are projected to reach 1.28 million mt worth $10.5 billion, an increase of five percent over 2023.
Latin America is playing a big part in the demand for U.S. red meat. The USMEF realizes the boom in Latin America is great and will only get bigger, so the U.S. industry should keep a close watch on its competition.
A lot of competition comes from Brazil where they export more meat into Mexico, Central America and Japan. But as we know, the U.S. exports the highest-quality meat in the world. It is expensive, but we have the best beef, pork and lamb anywhere.
The USMEF is aggressively looking for new markets around the world, from Latin America to Africa and China.
As the U.S. will no doubt get tougher on trade with China, I wonder how it will affect agriculture products. Currently, China is a huge trading partner with the U.S. for grains, fertilizer and beef, and we hope it will keep growing.
Mexico is the country everyone is watching for trade. The new President Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in the first of October. Since then, she has somewhat aligned Mexico with Venezuela and Cuba, and she wants the U.S. to stop all embargoes with Cuba. So far, she is supplying Cuba with oil, but this could expand to other products as well.
Mexico and the U.S. have always been good trading partners, but this could change with issues such as Mexico’s restrictions on imports of genetically-modified corn, new U.S. Department of Agriculture rules on voluntary country-of-origin labeling of beef and pork and threats from the U.S. to limit imports of certain produce items.
There is also the issue of Mexico manufacturing autos, tractors and farm machinery and selling them in the U.S. All of these issues will be discussed when the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement comes up for review in 2026.
Canada will also have issues to discuss at the USMCA review in 2026, such as U.S. country-of-origin labeling. They stopped it a number of years ago when the U.S. first implemented it.
Canada appealed it to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the WTO threatened the U.S. with a couple of billion dollars of tariffs. So, the U.S. had to back down.
World trade is a big issue for the U.S. I wish the negotiators have good results.
Dennis Sun is the publisher of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup, a weekly agriculture newspaper available in print and online.
