The U.S. Meat Export Federation says the U.S.-China Phase One Economic and Trade Agreement has been beneficial to U.S. red meat exports.
It?s been a year since the red meat trade provisions of the agreement entered into force, expanding access for U.S. beef and pork in the world?s largest red meat import market.
Joel Haggard is USMEF?s senior vice president for the Asia Pacific. He explains that while U.S. pork exports to China would have been large in 2020 with or without Phase One, the agreement helped calm trade tensions between the two countries and simplified the process for U.S. plants seeking approval for export to China.
?For red meat, the U.S. really enjoyed a banner first year of trade with China under Phase One with a value of combined U.S. beef and pork exports rising from just below $1.4 billion in 2019 to $2.5 billion last year,? Haggard said. ?On the pork side, there was another powerful dynamic already at work when Phase One started to be implemented. China reported its first African Swine Fever case in August 2018. The real supply hole appearing by the end of 2019, which then created a crush of import orders. In short, large exports to China were in the cards for us anyway last year. Certainly though, Phase One did provide a calming effect to what had been a turbulent few years of trade tensions between the U.S. and China.?
On the beef side, Haggard notes that Phase One greatly improved the prospects for U.S. exports by bringing China’s beef import requirements more in line with international standards, especially in the area of synthetic hormone use.
?The impact of Phase One on U.S. beef exports to China is a bit of a different story,? Haggard said. ?U.S. beef gained post-BSE access to China in July 2017. Import conditions were still very restrictive, however, and trade ended up being pretty limited. But U.S. negotiators went back to the table as part of the Phase One talks and managed to move China more in line with international standards, especially on safe tolerances for hormone residues. Our exports have really taken off. The U.S. has been exporting somewhere around 2,000 tons of beef a week to China. If this pace continues, it will be one of our top five markets this year.?
In 2020, U.S. pork and pork variety meat exports to China were record-large at nearly 1 million metric tons, valued at $2.28 billion. U.S. beef and beef variety meat exports to China were just under 43,000 metric tons, also a new record and up more than 300% from 2019. Beef export value was $310.2 million, a year-over-year increase of 260%.
