China has imposed new 55% “safeguard” tariffs on beef imported over specific quotas from countries including the United States, Brazil and Australia, China's Ministry of Commerce announced Wednesday..
The U.S. industry’s more immediate concern is renewing the registration of facilities in the U.S. for export to the country.
“Our U.S. beef exports to China have effectively come to a halt over the past few months because of China's failure to renew the plant registrations,” U.S. Meat Export Federation spokesperson Joe Schuele said. “So, while we're disappointed with the safeguard measures, our most urgent priority is to get the market reopened.”
“The safeguard tariff would not kick in until we hit the country-specific threshold,” Schuele said.
The U.S. quota was set by China at 164,000 tons for 2026. U.S. beef exports to China are currently subject to 22% tariffs.
China conducted a year-long investigation into beef exports, concluding with its announcement Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Commerce Ministry said “the increase in imported beef had severely damaged China's domestic industry.”
“The threshold volume is fairly consistent with where our total shipments were over the investigation period, which is 2021 through 2024, so we could ship volumes fairly consistent with what we shipped during those three years,” Schuele said.
“There shouldn't be much of an immediate impact on the ability to ship U.S. beef, but we still think it's an unwise policy direction for China to take,” he said.
U.S. beef exports to China have tanked this year. “Through September, exports to China fell 57% to 57,050 [metric tons], valued at $486.7 million (down 58%),” USMEF said in a news release Dec. 12. “China is now Australia’s largest destination for grain-fed beef exports, with shipments to China up 55% to 132,000 mt from January through November.”
“We know nearly every plant that had been eligible to ship to China is no longer eligible, so we're seeing just very, very small volumes of beef week to week,” Schuele said. “We can say the market is effectively closed.”
In September, beef exports to China “were down to about 500 tons, a very small amount,” Schuele said.
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