It’s summer season grilling season, however for lots of American citizens, surging costs imply red meat is now not what’s for dinner.
The price of red meat, having spiked since early 2025, is coming underneath much more power. The latest is the screwworm outbreak that hit livestock in Mexico and has now unfold to the USA, the place the livestock herd has already fallen to ranges no longer observed because the Fifties, due partly to drought.
In the meantime, possible business disruptions loom. Simply prior to U.S. and Mexican business negotiators started assembly on June 16-17, 2026, to speak about the long-standing deal binding North The usa, President Donald Trump warned that Washington would possibly not renew the settlement, which was once negotiated all the way through his first time period, and as an alternative probably withdraw from it altogether.
As world business and cattle economists, we’ve studied how North American business has deeply built-in livestock and red meat markets, influencing manufacturing, costs and the motion of animals and meat merchandise throughout Canada, Mexico and the USA. And since red meat is each a most sensible agricultural import and export for the U.S., the business is particularly prone to any disruptions to the present business deal. As one instance, the price of flooring red meat is up by means of greater than 20% simply since January 2025.
Present business uncertainty, reflecting Trump’s extra fragmented, bilateral technique to negotiations, couldn’t come at a worse second for inflation-weary shoppers. The rising turmoil within the North American red meat marketplace dangers additional tightening provides and elevating costs.
A harmonized marketplace
Pass-border business was once anchored in 1994 by means of the North American Loose Industry Settlement, which established unfastened business between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It remained in position till Trump changed it with the USA–Mexico–Canada Settlement, which got here into power in 2020. In contrast to NAFTA, that deal should be collectively reviewed each and every six years and features a 16‑yr sundown clause. Red meat, like different items coated by means of the settlement, was once exempted from the price lists that Trump imposed on the ones buying and selling companions in 2025.
Officially, all 3 nations should come to a decision by means of July 1, 2026, whether or not to increase the deal for some other 16 years or let it revert to a chain of annual evaluations till the overall expiration in 2036. However Canada, whose dating with Trump is particularly fraught, is to this point sitting out the talks. As a substitute, U.S. and Mexican negotiators are assembly by means of themselves and feature now grew to become to agriculture, with red meat as one of the vital key sectors.
Red meat costs, manufacturing choices and provide are carefully tied in combination around the 3 nations, successfully making a unmarried North American red meat marketplace. Livestock and red meat merchandise transfer seamlessly throughout borders, due to the decrease price lists and harmonized laws that resulted from the 1994 and 2020 business offers. The U.S. imports younger “feeder” livestock to be fattened for slaughter from Mexico, in addition to mature, or “fed,” livestock able for slaughter from Canada, either one of which in the long run pass to U.S. packing vegetation. To assist meet client call for in Mexico, the U.S. additionally exports red meat merchandise and fed livestock.
This integration may be necessary for keeping up the USA’ personal red meat provide. Nearly all U.S. livestock imports are from Mexico and Canada, amounting to round 2.1 million head in 2024, valued at greater than US$3 billion. That quantity would possibly glance small towards the full quantity slaughtered within the U.S. that yr – round 32 million head – however having a gentle drift into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada is helping stabilize provides and arrange costs.
The significance of that dating changed into transparent in 2025, when reside livestock imports plunged by means of greater than 50%. That lower persisted into 2026, as younger livestock imports from Mexico collapsed by means of greater than 80% because of the screwworm outbreak. The parasite has now been found out in livestock in south Texas and New Mexico, which induced Canada to slap bans on reside livestock from the area.
The place’s the meat?
The present business talks transcend the meat sector, and agriculture extra widely, to surround problems comparable to laws of starting place, exertions and environmental requirements, virtual business and funding provisions that form North American provide chains. On the identical time, U.S. business negotiators are bringing the Trump management’s extra protectionist and transactional technique to the desk.
Red meat is one of the essential business relationships at stake if negotiators fail to conclude the assessment. In 2025, Mexico was once the third-largest marketplace for U.S. red meat exports, exceeding $1.3 billion, whilst Canada was once the fourth-largest marketplace at $874 million. At the turn facet, Canada and Mexico ranked 2d and 0.33, respectively, amongst nations exporting red meat to the U.S., with greater than $5 billion mixed.
U.S. farmers and ranchers, like this staff in Omaha, Neb., closely lobbied the primary Trump management for favorable provisions within the 2020 business deal that changed NAFTA.
AP Photograph/Nati Harnik
Trump’s risk however, the U.S. has so much to lose if it quits the 2020 deal altogether. For the reason that U.S. Preferrred Court docket dominated towards Trump’s sweeping emergency price lists previous this yr, the management has a more potent incentive to stay its different equipment in business talks. And U.S. farm teams, a key Trump constituency, are strongly lobbying the Trump management to stay the deal.
If the U.S. exits the pact, North American business would most likely revert to extra fundamental world laws, which might unfastened Mexico and Canada to impose their very own price lists, elevating prices for manufacturers, processors and, in the long run, shoppers.
The 2 buying and selling companions would even have a freer hand with nontariff obstacles, comparable to requiring stricter inspections, extra bureaucracy and possible quotas on U.S. exports, all of which might decelerate business. As a result of livestock ceaselessly move borders a couple of instances all the way through manufacturing, even small delays can create vital disruptions.
The end result would most likely be much less environment friendly provide chains, fewer imported livestock, tighter U.S. provide and, in any case, upper costs. And a few U.S. ranchers are already bracing for a worst-case state of affairs, like what soybean farmers have already observed when a key export marketplace disappears.
“We can’t lose demand for our products,” one rancher advised us. “Look what happened with soybeans last year when China quit buying.”
