At the start of this week a White House official said that US President Donald Trump would sign a series of executive orders which would allow more beef into the US at a reduced tariff rate.
The orders, which would temporarily suspend tariff rate quotas on imports for all nations exporting beef to the US, meant that there would be no cap on the amount of beef that could be sold to the US at the preferential tariff rate.
However, the executive orders never came, and it is unclear when, or if, the president will sign them.
The latest word from the White House is that the administration is “fine tuning” the plan.
The proposal was met with immediate opposition farmers and their representatives in the US as an increase in imports would potentially derail efforts to rebuild the country’s national beef herd which is at the lowest level in 75 years. Bill Bullard, CEO of cattle producers’ group R-CALF USA said small farmers could exit the industry if prices drop, and noted that the US has had record imports over recent years even as prices continued to rise for consumers.
Farmers are an important constituency for Trump and his Republican Party, so he may be unwilling to upset them too much ahead of elections later this year.
Trump is in China this week, where he will try to get the country to agree to buy more US agricultural products.
The Asian nation has targeted food and grain imports from the US as part of its response to trade measures and tariffs introduced against it by the Trump administration.
SHARING OPTIONS