BSE, tariffs and ‘wonderful people': what you need to know about US-Australia beef relations

The Guardian

03-04-2025

Donald Trump did not impose any special penalties on Australia beyond a baseline 10% tariff on goods exported to the US.
But Trump did single out the Australian beef industry in his speech preceding his tariffs announcement. 'Australia bans – and they're wonderful people – but they ban American beef,' the US president said.
The US, Trump said, imported $3bn of Australian beef 'last year alone'. He then took aim at Australia's biosecurity rules restricting import of US beef.
'They won't take any of our beef. They don't want it because they don't want it to affect their farmers and, you know, I don't blame them, but we're doing the same thing right now, starting at midnight tonight.'
Here's what you need to know about Australian rules governing beef imports.
Australia introduced a ban on US beef imports in 2003, in response to an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease.
It was technically lifted in 2019, subject to an ongoing biosecurity review that in practice means no imports of fresh beef. The sticking point is the US's reliance on live cattle imports from Canada and Mexico to bolster its national herd.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, have both said they will not compromise on biosecurity to allow the US access to the Australian market.
Any country seeking market access to import fresh beef products – which means chilled or frozen meat, not processed beef products – must undergo a BSE risk assessment, conducted by Food Standards Australia New Zealand. A risk assessment of the US published in 2015 granted it category 1 status, concluding that the US had 'comprehensive and well-established controls' to prevent BSE outbreaks in cattle and any contamination into the human food chain.
Category 1 countries are able to import fresh and processed beef into Australia so long as they comply with other conditions.
In 2017, Australia released the beef review, which assessed applications for market access from countries that had passed the BSE risk assessment, including the US. That review should have been the final step in allowing access to the Australian market – except it specified that the animal from which the beef was derived must have been 'continuously resident' in the approved country since birth.
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In January 2020, US officials clarified that their request included beef sourced from bovines legally imported into the US from Mexico and Canada. The US imported an average of 700,000 cattle, buffalo or bison from Canada each year between 2019 and 2023 and 1.2 million per year from Mexico over the same period. Australia responded that that amounted to a change of scope and would require a science-based assessment to ensure the biosecurity risk was no greater than for cattle born and wholly raised in the US. A draft report was released for public comment last year and the final report is yet to be released.
Australian industry stakeholders raised concerns about the traceability of cattle born outside the US and argued that all beef imported to Australia should be subject to the same rigorous end-to-end traceability requirements as Australian producers. The US does have a national traceability system but it is widely agreed to be not as rigorous as the electronic traceability system in Australia.
The Cattle Australia president, Dr Chris Parker, said the US effectively had access to the Australian market provided it can demonstrate its beef comes from cattle that have lived continuously in the US.
'These are the same conditions that the US imposes on Australian exporters – reciprocal arrangements are already in place,' he said in a statement on Wednesday. 'The US industry has not been able to meet these standards and now wish to include beef from cattle born in Mexico and Canada.'
Parker, who is in Washington this week to lobby for Australian cattle interests, said US farmers were unable to meet the domestic demand and Australian farmers were filling the shortfall.
'Imposing tariffs on Australian beef disregards the mutually beneficial role of each country's supply chain, and the effects will be most acutely felt by American consumers and industry,' he said.
The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry told industry press Beef Central that import conditions into Australia were 'currently available for beef products sourced from cattle born, raised and slaughtered in the United States' but the US has not started trade under those terms.
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In short, no. Australia produced 2.5m tonnes of beef last year, of which just over one-fifth was consumed onshore.
Angus Gidley-Baird, a senior animal proteins analyst at Rabobank, said it is highly unlikely that US imports would ever constitute anything other than a very small, very specialised market.
'We are a very efficient producer here … We have got plenty of beef in Australia to satisfy the domestic market,' he said.
Gidley-Baird said the beef exported to the US from Australia was 'largely complementary' to its domestic product: the US produces higher-fat, grain-fed beef and the vast cattle herds of northern Australia are lean, grass-fed beef. Those two products are mixed in US ground beef and hamburgers.
'It's not like we are displacing US product in that respect; it's that they are not producing it on their own,' he said.
It is too early to say what the impact will be.
Gidley-Baird said the blanket application of a 10% tariff means that Australia's competitive position remains unchanged. Brazil, the largest beef exporter to the US ahead of Australia, will also be subject to a 10% tariff.
'The question is which part of the supply chain will wear the costs,' Gidley-Baird said. 'With very strong demand and limited supply in the US for beef at the moment, you could argue that it will land on the consumer end.'
The US cattle herd is at a 74-year low due to prolonged drought conditions. In 2024 the US imported 525,980 tonnes of Australian beef to fill the gap.
Tariffs may bring opportunities for some sections of the industry, Gidley-Baird said. Australia competes against US beef producers in the high-end wagyu markets in China and Japan. Trump announced a 34% tariff on goods from China on top of an existing 20% levy and a 24% tariff on Japan, which may mean they look more towards Australian suppliers.
The National Farmers' Federation (NFF) and Cattle Australia said they would look for diversification opportunities, particularly the resumption of talks over the EU fair trade agreement. The trade minister, Don Farrell, said he had a meeting scheduled with EU partners on Monday.
The NFF president, David Jochinke, said the tariff announcement was a 'disappointing step backward for our nations and for the global economy'.
Albanese told reporters in Melbourne that he spoke to the NFF and beef producers on Wednesday morning to offer support in a 'really difficult period for them', but added that 'in terms of the competitive position, it is maintained'.
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