by Will Jordan
USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) final rule on the “Importation of Fresh Beef From Paraguay” goes into effect this week, on Nov. 14, 2023. Published in the Federal Register last month, the rule has drawn many questions from producers.
According to the APHIS’s rule, they expect fresh beef imported from Paraguay to be between 3,250 and 6,500 Metric Tons (MT). Quantified, this equates to about 5 to 10 percent of the import tariff-rate-quota volume (65,000 MT) of the other countries that import beef to U.S. markets.
“The results of the analysis indicate that consumer gains of $14 million to $27 million would outweigh producer losses of $12 million to $24 million, yielding annual net social welfare gains of $1.6 million to $3 million. We also expect a portion of the beef imported from Paraguay will displace beef that would otherwise be imported from other countries,” APHIS said in their rule publication.
I recently sat down with Alexis Taylor, USDA Under Secretary of Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, to ask the hard question of why.