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Beef and pork trade agreement with Mexico and Peru

For the first time in over a decade, U.S. producers can export slaughter cattle to Mexico.

“We are excited about the opportunity to reintroduce beef into the Mexican market, we’re also excited about the agreement that was reached with Peru on fresh and chilled pork,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The agreement, announced on April 10 by Secretary Vilsack was the result of work done between the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and its counterparts in Mexico and Peru.

“The work that APHIS does is so important to our success in obtaining agricultural exports,” Ed Avalos, USDA Under Secretary said. “We live today in a world of free-trade agreements, we live in a world of negotiations of other kinds, but so often countries will use a sanitary or phytosanitary measures to restrict trade, and APHIS is instrumental in resolving those issues.”

Under the agreement, Mexico has the potential to import $15 million of live U.S. cattle per year, Peru’s market could generate $5 million annually in additional pork sales.

In fiscal year 2014 American farmers and ranchers exported a record $152.5 billion of food and agricultural products to consumers worldwide.