The US Meat Export Federation is highlighting the gains of meat exports in the USDA’s 2025 year-end data. USMEF President and CEO Dan Halstrom provided an overview of the near record pork exports last year.
“A very good month at 258,000 metric tons for the month of December. That gives us an annual total that comes in with the number three largest tonnage year ever. And on the value side, the second largest year ever led by Mexico, of course, but that doesn’t stop there with Latin America. We continue to see records set in Central America as well, continue to see growth record in the Caribbean region. In the last half of the year, we saw some rebound in the Asian markets as well,” said Halstrom.
Halstrom also shared the impacts of the lack of access to the China market for beef, saying, “Came in at 98,600 tons, which is the largest export month since April of 2025.So for the year, tonnage down about 12 percent, value down about 11 percent, but the vast majority of that is China. But if you look at the rest of the world, it really has been doing quite well. You know, the largest value market for the year was Japan, down slightly, but still a very big number. Korea is our largest value market, some very big numbers on beef variety meats. For the month of December, $122 million, which is a record.”
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.