Good morning! Can Brazilian beef re-enter the U.S. market? Congress returns from holiday.
Can Brazilian beef re-enter the U.S. market?
Next week, when President Jair Bolsonaro heads to Washington to meet with Donald Trump, he
will be flanked by Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina. She has the mission of negotiating the re-opening of the U.S. market to Brazilian beef—which has been banned since 2017 due to “signs of systemic failure of [sanitary] inspections.” But U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue might not even be in Washington when the Brazilian delegation arrives—a sign that lifting the ban will be a hard ordeal.
In 2018, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) declared Brazil free of foot-and-mouth disease with vaccination. However, the U.S. only recognizes 14 states as free of the disease. Brazilian producers claim they have taken every measure demanded by U.S. health authorities to correct sanitary issues. However, Ms. Cristina believes the success of negotiations depends less on beef, rather on whether the U.S. gets to increase its exports of other products to Brazil, namely pork, sugar, corn-based ethanol, and wheat.
Why is the U.S. market so important to Brazil’s producers?
From a financial standpoint, the U.S. market is not that...