By Tom Polansek
July 24 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture is partially lifting a ban on imports of Mexican cattle it imposed more than a year ago to keep out the flesh-eating livestock pest New World screwworm, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing an interview with Secretary Brooke Rollins.
The halt of imports helped drive U.S. beef prices to record highs, hurting consumers and putting pressure on President Donald Trump’s administration to lower costs. The ban also ultimately failed to keep out screwworm, which has moved north through Central America and was detected in June on Texas farms and in New Mexico.
The U.S. plans to resume importing Mexican cattle at a port of entry in Douglas, Arizona, in 30 days and eventually open two additional ports of entry in New Mexico, the WSJ said.
The USDA and a spokesperson for Mexico’s president did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Screwworms are parasitic flies whose females lay eggs in open wounds and mucous membranes on any warm-blooded animal. Once the eggs hatch, hundreds of screwworm larvae use their sharp mouths to burrow through living flesh, eventually killing their host if left untreated.
Resuming imports will increase risks for more U.S. infestations, said Bill Bullard, CEO of U.S. cattle producers’ group R-CALF USA.
“As long as the border is open, it will incentivize the northward movement of cattle from southern Mexico, where the pest is endemic, to the United States,” he said.
In Texas, the nation’s biggest cattle-producing state, closing the border has forced the $100 billion U.S. beef industry to contract.
U.S. beef prices set record highs this year as domestic cattle supplies dropped to a 75-year low because of the import ban and drought conditions that drove American producers to slash their herds.
Tight supplies raised cattle costs for meatpackers, including Tyson Foods, which closed a massive processing plant in Nebraska this year. Rival JBS also said it will close a Pennsylvania beef plant.
The Texas Cattle Feeders Association, which represents the cattle feeding industry in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, said the U.S. can resume imports safely with the correct protocols in place.
“We think the science supports it,” said Josh Winegarner, the association’s director of government relations. He added that the halt had given the USDA time to work on its protocols and response to screwworm.
Ports of entry in Arizona and New Mexico are farther away from screwworm infestations in Mexico, and resuming imports into those locations is considered less risky than restarting imports into Texas, according to livestock traders.
(Reporting by Natalia Bueno Rebolledo in Mexico City and Tom Polansek in Chicago; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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