December 13, 2022
Not too long ago our government leaders embarked on their frenzied globalist agenda. Globalism was their means of exacting efficiencies in worldwide manufacturing and production – things would be made, and food would be grown in whichever country was most efficient and the global market would ensure that every consumer could access anything they wanted or needed at the lowest possible cost.
This triggered the rapid ascent of China, which has now weakened America’s manufacturing base and ushered America into dependency.
America’s leaders choose beef, the world’s preeminent protein source, to be globalism’s poster child – with the unregulated trade in beef the goal and elevating the economic standing of beef producing underdeveloped and developing countries the wishful outcome. The theory was that those underdeveloped and developing countries would eventually buy more of the other stuff we could manufacture and produce here.
But there was a practical problem – those countries couldn’t meet America’s stringent health and safety standards, so they couldn’t export beef to us. Now for every problem there’s a solution, and America had one. America would lower its standards.
Here’s a quote from our government that enabled beef imports into America from underdeveloped and developing countries:
“[T]he United States can no longer require foreign countries wishing to export meat and poultry products to have meat and poultry inspection systems that are ‘‘at least equal’’ to those in the United States . . .”
And that’s how the U.S. imports a growing volume of beef from about 20 different countries, including from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Croatia, and soon Paraguay.
Now although our government knows beyond a doubt that increased beef and cattle imports depress domestic cattle prices, they rationalize it like this:
“Imports [] increase net social welfare. To the extent that consumer choice is broadened and the increased supply of the imported commodity leads to a price decline, gains in consumer surplus will outweigh losses in domestic producer surplus.”
So now we know how and why America is importing more and more beef from more and more foreign countries.
But with what effect on the U.S. cattle industry and the rural communities it supports?
Let’s look at just two of the effects from increased beef and cattle imports, and we’ll use real life examples, not theory.
First, growing beef and cattle imports eliminate economic opportunities for both current and aspiring cattle producers.
The Pacific Northwest, which according to Washington State University, experienced a decline of Washington’s beef cow herd at double the rate of decline of the U.S. herd, provides us with a real-life example.
Imports of Mexican and Canadian cattle were encouraged in the Pacific Northwest by the beef industry – the North American Meat Institute and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, to supplement seasonal shortages and help feed yards and packing facilities run at optimal levels.
So that region began importing about 300,000 head of imported fat cattle and imported feeder cattle.
With this result: The importation of Mexican and Canadian fat cattle and feeder cattle displaced about 240K head of domestic beef cows and 10,000 beef cattle farms and ranches in the Pacific Northwest.
The second effect: The growing beef and cattle imports have transformed multinational beef packers into global beef brokers that buy low priced beef products from around the world and then sell them high in other global markets using the U.S. as their global platform.
The global brokering of cow tongues provides a real-life example.
Cow tongues are such a good example because the beef industry has been using them to persuade cattle producers to continue supporting current trade policy. They’ve said we produce way more tongues than we could ever consume here, which makes them relatively worthless in our domestic market. But in global markets like Japan, those near-worthless tongues bring huge premiums.
Let’s look at what they do, not listen to what they say.
During the past five years, importers imported over 20 million pounds of frozen cow tongues from Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Ireland, Costa Rica, Netherlands, Lithuania and Honduras.
Current labeling laws allow those imported frozen tongues to be put in a box and promoted by your beef checkoff dollars as U.S. Beef and then exported around the world. During the same five-year period, the U.S. exported frozen tongues to 25 countries.
That’s the new age of beef brokering. And bully for us! We’ve helped the multinational packers laugh all the way to Wall Street.
Now you know why the beef industry so vehemently opposes mandatory country of origin labeling, or MCOOL.
Help us win MCOOL and get our trade policies right, go to our website at www.r-calfusa.com to join with us.
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