Australian beef has replaced U.S. supply in China since Donald Trump returned to the White House, funnelling hundreds of millions of dollars that have in previous years gone to the U.S. cattle industry into Australian pockets.
U.S. shipments to China, worth around $120 million a month, collapsed after Beijing in March allowed permits to expire at hundreds of American meat facilities and as Trump unleashed a tit-for-tat tariff war.
Other U.S. farm exports to China, the world’s biggest food importer, have also suffered since Trump retook power. On soybeans alone, U.S. farmers have lost out on shipments worth billions of dollars during the current harvest season.
US cattle inventory is at a 70 year low anyways.
https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/h702q636h/nz807x85h/1g05hb55x/catl0725.pdf
Meaning we couldn’t keep up with global markets anyways. Let other countries take on the ecological destruction that comes with trying to export meat. Every have a feed lot next to your water supply or a processing plant in your town? We need to fall back to smaller domestic market where local butchers are actually needed to supply their communities and not large grocery stores.