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NE Farm Bureau urges beef trade talks with Japan

The Nebraska Farm Bureau is urging U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to prioritize beef trade talks with Japan.

Nebraska Farm Bureau President, Mark McHargue.

“Japan’s a long-term market for us, we need to make sure and send as much product there as we can,” McHargue said. “Nebraska has a great quality beef product going into Japan so we would like to have that as one of the trade things that she [Tai] works on.”

Large amounts of U.S. beef exports to Japan starting in 2020 triggered its tariff quota, raising the tariff on U.S. beef from 25 percent to more than 38 percent. McHargue tells Brownfield it’s created an uneven playing field and negatively impacted U.S. producers.

“Anytime that we are on a level playing field, we win in Nebraska because we have a quality product,” he said. “We know they like our product, we sell more, and it’d be a big win for Nebraska.”

McHargue said while the current situation might have to be solved with time by letting the tariff quota reset, he hopes Tai can prevent a repeat situation.