What does lifting trade restrictions on US beef mean for Australia?

Australia Broadcast Center

3 days ago

It might not be on our plates or menus just yet, but US beef has been a hot topic of conversation across the nation after this week's decision to lift import restrictions that had been in place for more than two decades.
Australia banned beef imports from the US in 2003 after the fatal neurological disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, was discovered in American cattle.
The blanket ban was lifted in 2019, however restrictions remained on beef that was sourced from Canada or Mexico and slaughtered in the US, amid concerns it could carry the disease.
"The Americans were unwilling to … do the traceability work to make sure that beef that was coming to Australia wasn't actually rebranded from somewhere else," veterinarian and former NSW Farmers Association president, James Jackson, said.
"We don't want foot and mouth disease in this country, we don't want our consumers to eat beef and get Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is the disease you get from eating cattle with mad cow disease."
While some in the industry were optimistic that lifting the restrictions would open up trade opportunities for Australian producers, others raised concerns that Australia's biosecurity could be compromised.
The federal government said the move was the result of a decade-long biosecurity review that found more robust movement controls had been introduced in the US.
"The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is satisfied the strengthened control measures put in place by the US effectively manage biosecurity risks," Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said.
"The Albanese Labor government will never compromise on biosecurity."
Nationals leader David Littleproud questioned the timing of the decision, saying it looked as though it was a trade to appease US President Donald Trump.
The biosecurity restrictions on beef imports from the United States were one of the key grievances that led the Trump administration to impose tariffs on Australia.
Red Meat Advisory Council chair John McKillop said while the decision may have been pushed through "slightly quicker" than expected, he was confident it was the result of a long-running assessment.
Global AgriTrends analyst Simon Quilty said the risk of US beef imports introducing diseases to Australia was now much lower.
"They have improved their traceability methods within America and I think, in all honesty, that the degree of risk is significantly low," he said.
Mr McKillop said any risk would also be mitigated by the limited amount of beef Australia was likely to import from the US.
"They have the lowest beef herd in 70 years in the US at the moment [due to drought]," he said.
"The most [beef] that was ever brought in, and this was pre-BSE … was 210 tonnes … in contrast to the 395,000 tonnes we exported to the US last year."
Mr McKillop said the US was also experiencing near-record beef and cattle prices, and it was unlikely Australians would want to pay high prices for their product.
While the amount of beef coming into Australia from the US may be limited, Mr Jackson said there could be a market for it.
"There may be some lines [of product] come into Australia, people who want to sell American beef on a restaurant menu or something like that," he said.
Mr Jackson said Australia must be open to accepting American beef if it wanted to maintain a trade relationship with the US.
"Part of a trade deal is that you're willing to take product from other countries," he said.
"Are we happy with Australian consumers eating American beef? Well, probably we're not that happy, but the reality is that if you trade, you've got to be happy to take other people's product as well."
The trade restriction on US beef has been a key grievance for the Trump administration, which placed a 10 per cent tariff on all Australian imports earlier this year.
Professor Ben Lyons, from the University of Southern Queensland's Rural Economies Centre of Excellence, said it was difficult to know how the move would impact that tariff.
"Nothing would surprise us at the moment because that's the new paradigm under the Trump administration — full of surprises," he said.
Dr Lyons said he was confident the Australian beef industry would maintain a strong export market, regardless of US-imposed tariffs.
"If past performance is the best indicator of the future, we always seem to find a way with our export markets," he said.
"Even the announcement of this tariff on Australian beef at the beginning of the year hasn't really had any economic impact as yet on our exports.
"I think we should just carry on calmly and do what we do best.
I don't really see this as being a long-term issue for Australian agriculture."