Global Beef Trade: Effects of Animal Health, Sanitary, Food Safety, and Other Measures on U.S. Beef Exports

Investigation No. 332-488
USITC Publication 4033

Summary

U.S. beef processors and beef cattle ranchers lose billions of dollars in export opportunities each year because of animal health and food safety measures in other countries that are inconsistent with international standards and vary by country, reports the U.S. International Trade Commission in its most recent general factfinding report Global Beef Trade: Effects of Animal Health, Sanitary, Food Safety, and Other Measures on U.S. Beef Exports.

Completed at the request of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, the ITC report provides an overview of the U.S. and global beef markets and information on animal health and food safety measures facing U.S. and other major beef exporters in major destination markets.

The report also includes information on other measures restricting U.S. beef exports (primarily tariffs and tariff-rate quotas (TRQs)) and compares their impact to the impact of animal health and food safety regulations on US beef exports.

The ITC found that:

• from 2004 to 2007, the period studied in the report, animal health and food safety regulations in importing countries reduced U.S. beef exports by $2.5 billion to $3.1 billion per year.
• animal health and food safety regulations in Japan and Korea accounted for most of the export losses over the period;
• many countries restricted imports of U.S. beef following the 2003 discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a dairy cow of Canadian origin in the U.S. cattle herd;
• the effect of identified animal health and food safety regulations on U.S. beef exports outweighed the effects of tariffs and TRQs over the period studied; and
• although the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) provides guidelines and standards regarding the safety of beef trade, many importing country regulations are not consistent with these guidelines.

View the publication at: http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4033.pdf