It’s summer season grilling season, however for a lot of People, surging costs imply beef is not what’s for dinner.
The price of beef, having spiked since early 2025, is coming underneath much more strain. The most recent is the screwworm outbreak that hit cattle in Mexico and has now unfold to the US, the place the cattle herd has already fallen to ranges not seen because the Nineteen Fifties, due in part to drought.
In the meantime, potential commerce disruptions loom. Simply earlier than U.S. and Mexican commerce negotiators started assembly on June 16-17, 2026, to debate the long-standing deal binding North America, President Donald Trump warned that Washington could not renew the settlement, which was negotiated throughout his first time period, and as an alternative doubtlessly withdraw from it altogether.
As international trade and livestock economists, we’ve got studied how North American commerce has deeply integrated cattle and beef markets, influencing manufacturing, costs, and the motion of animals and meat merchandise throughout Canada, Mexico, and the US. And since beef is each a high agricultural import and export for the U.S., the trade is very susceptible to any disruptions to the present commerce deal. As one instance, the price of floor beef is up by more than 20% simply since January 2025.
Present commerce uncertainty, reflecting Trump’s more fragmented, bilateral approach to negotiations, couldn’t come at a worse second for inflation-weary shoppers. The rising turmoil within the North American beef market dangers additional tightening provides and elevating costs.
A harmonized market
Cross-border commerce was anchored in 1994 by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which established free commerce between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It remained in place till Trump changed it with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, which got here into power in 2020. Not like NAFTA, that deal should be collectively reviewed each six years and features a 16‑yr sunset clause. Beef, like different items lined by the settlement, was exempted from the tariffs that Trump imposed on these buying and selling companions in 2025.
Formally, all three countries must decide by July 1, 2026, whether or not to increase the deal for an additional 16 years or let it revert to a collection of annual critiques till the total expiration in 2036. However Canada, whose relationship with Trump is very fraught, is to this point sitting out the talks. As an alternative, U.S. and Mexican negotiators are assembly by themselves and have now turned to agriculture, with beef as one of many key sectors.
Beef costs, manufacturing choices, and provide are intently tied collectively throughout the three nations, successfully making a single North American beef market. Cattle and beef merchandise move seamlessly across borders, because of the lower tariffs and harmonized regulations that resulted from the 1994 and 2020 commerce offers. The U.S. imports younger “feeder” cattle to be fattened for slaughter from Mexico, in addition to mature, or “fed,” cattle prepared for slaughter from Canada, each of which finally go to U.S. packing crops. To assist meet client demand in Mexico, the U.S. additionally exports beef merchandise and fed cattle.
This integration can also be essential for sustaining the US’ personal beef provide. Nearly all U.S. cattle imports are from Mexico and Canada, amounting to round 2.1 million head in 2024, valued at greater than US$3 billion. That quantity could look small towards the overall quantity slaughtered within the U.S. that yr – around 32 million head – however having a gentle movement into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada helps stabilize provides and handle costs.
The significance of that relationship grew to become clear in 2025, when stay cattle imports plunged by more than 50%. That lower continued into 2026, as younger cattle imports from Mexico collapsed by more than 80% because of the screwworm outbreak. The parasite has now been discovered in cattle in South Texas and New Mexico, which prompted Canada to slap bans on stay cattle from the area.
The place’s the meat?
The present commerce talks transcend the meat sector, and agriculture extra broadly, to embody points similar to guidelines of origin, labor and environmental requirements, digital commerce, and funding provisions that form North American provide chains. On the similar time, U.S. commerce negotiators are bringing the Trump administration’s extra protectionist and transactional approach to the desk.
Beef is among the many important commerce relationships at stake if negotiators fail to conclude the evaluation. In 2025, Mexico was the third-largest marketplace for U.S. beef exports, exceeding $1.3 billion, whereas Canada was the fourth-largest market at $874 million. On the flip aspect, Canada and Mexico ranked second and third, respectively, amongst nations exporting beef to the U.S., with greater than $5 billion combined.
Trump’s menace however, the U.S. has quite a bit to lose if it quits the 2020 deal altogether. Because the U.S. Supreme Court docket dominated towards Trump’s sweeping emergency tariffs earlier this yr, the administration has a stronger incentive to maintain its different instruments in commerce talks. And U.S. farm teams, a key Trump constituency, are strongly lobbying the Trump administration to maintain the deal.
If the U.S. exits the pact, North American commerce would likely revert to extra fundamental worldwide guidelines, which might free Mexico and Canada to impose their very own tariffs, elevating prices for producers, processors and, finally, shoppers.
The 2 buying and selling companions would even have a freer hand with nontariff boundaries, similar to requiring stricter inspections, extra paperwork, and potential quotas on U.S. exports, all of which might decelerate commerce. As a result of cattle usually cross borders a number of occasions throughout manufacturing, even small delays can create important disruptions.
The end result would doubtless be much less environment friendly provide chains, fewer imported cattle, tighter U.S. provide, and, ultimately, greater costs. And a few U.S. ranchers are already bracing for a worst-case situation, like what soybean farmers have already seen when a key export market disappears.
“We will’t lose demand for our merchandise,” one rancher informed us. “Look what occurred with soybeans final yr when China stop shopping for.”
Andrew Muhammad is a professor of agricultural economics and the Blasingame Chair of Excellence on the University of Tennessee.
Charles Martinez is an assistant professor of agricultural and useful resource Economics.
This text is republished from The Conversation underneath a Inventive Commons license. Learn the original article.
