Mexico Cattle Back in US and More Beef Coming

Lorrie Boyer

Reporter

“We are reopening the Douglas Port in Arizona. We announced that about 30 days ago. We feel and believe, based on science and data, that we have taken every step to protect the American herd and the American consumer.”

That is USDA Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who says that ports will slowly reopen.

Today will be Douglas, Arizona. “We have our team there. In 30 days, we'll open up one of the New Mexico ports, and then 30 days after that, the third New Mexico port. We don't plan to open any Texas ports anytime soon, just because that is where the real activity is.”

The reopening continued as planned just days after Sonora confirmed its first case of New World screwworm. And as for President Donald Trump's plan to lower the tariff on 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef imports,

“I will never stop battling for our farmers and our ranchers, and ensuring that our president fully has every data and detail that he needs to understand, and he does understand, unless we rebuild our beef herd, we will become more and more reliant on foreign countries to feed and fuel ourselves. And that is, as I've mentioned, an absolute no go as we're working to bring all of this back to America.”

The 14-month closure resulted in about a million plus head of cattle staying south of the border.