United States Meat Exporters Federation (USMEF) data shows that beef exports fell again in June, by 6% to 88,586 tonnes compared with June 2025.

However, they increased in value by 3% due to higher prices being secured from customers in importing countries.

For the first half of 2026, US beef-export volumes fell by 9% to 545,649 tonnes, with much of this loss attributed by USMEF to ongoing problems in China. It points out that if China is excluded, exports are down by 1%.

The US's issues in China stem from failure by Chinese authorities to renew licences for US beef-export factories. These expired in March 2025, and though they were renewed following a visit by the US President to China in May this year, problems remain.

These are centred around plant suspensions and residue testing, issues that the USMEF reports that officials are working to resolve.

Markets

Japan and Korea are the other two major Asian markets for US beef exports. In June, volumes to both countries declined.

For Japan, volumes were down 3% compared with June 2025 to 19,425 tonnes, while exports to Korea were down 7% to 17,878 tonnes. For the year to date, US beef exports to Japan are down 8% to 114,476 tonnes compared with last year, while first-half-of-the-year exports to Korea were down 10% to 114,143 tonnes.

The position with Korea is influenced by the fact that there was considerable stockpiling of Australian beef ahead of the Trade safeguard clause being triggered, which adds an extra tariff to Australian beef.

This, USMEF believes, dampened demand for US beef to the end of June but will create opportunity in the latter part of the year.

EU and UK

Despite having a zero-tariff quota for both the EU and UK, the US is only exporting small quantities of beef to both. In the first six months of this year, the US exported 9,232 tonnes of beef to the EU and UK combined, almost exactly the same volume as they did in the same period last year.

The reason why volumes are so low is that US beef production is, primarily, from cattle that have been fed growth-promoting hormones in their diet. This is banned in EU production, and the same rule is also applied for beef that is imported into the EU.

This policy is controversial with the US and Canada, who also have a large beef quota for the EU but supply a negligible amount of EU beef imports.

Comment – US beef isn’t a significant competitor for Irish beef

Overall US beef exports are at a relatively low point largely because of cattle supply restricting production. The US's main export markets are neighbours Canada and Mexico plus high value Asian and Middle Eastern markets.

Hormone policy effectively excluded them from EU and UK markets, and this means that US beef exports and Irish beef exports operate in different orbits and don’t compete with each other.