{"id":423516,"date":"2026-05-12T07:29:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T07:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/423516\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T07:29:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T07:29:19","slug":"us-plan-to-cut-beef-import-tariffs-raises-questions-for-nz-farmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/423516\/","title":{"rendered":"US plan to cut beef import tariffs raises questions for NZ farmers"},"content":{"rendered":"US beef prices are very high because of tight supply arising from the US cattle herd sitting at a 75-year low.<\/p>\n
As it stands, New Zealand beef destined for the US is effectively tariff-free for the first 213,000 tonnes exported there.<\/p>\n
In the March quarter, New Zealand sent about 56,870 tonnes of beef to the US.<\/p>\n
That was down about 5% on the same year-ago quarter, mostly because of lower New Zealand production, but values were up by more than 12%.<\/p>\n
Against that background, it remains to be seen if New Zealand producers would gain any benefit from any new initiatives.<\/p>\n
Producers may well suffer if changes result in the market being flooded with product by the likes of Brazil, the world\u2019s biggest producer.<\/p>\n
America is the biggest export destination for New Zealand beef, although China sometimes takes the number one slot.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the US was the largest market for New Zealand beef for the year, taking 173,056 tonnes, a drop of 5%. However, high prices saw the value increase by 17% to $2.1 billion.<\/p>\n
Demand for New Zealand beef in the US is strong, even when it was subject to last year\u2019s 10% tariff, reflecting constrained US domestic supply. <\/p>\n
The US Government rowed back on tariffs on beef exports late last year because of high prices.<\/p>\n
Jamie Gray is an Auckland-based journalist, covering the financial markets, the primary sector and energy. He joined the Herald in 2011.<\/p>\n
Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our\u00a0Business newsletter<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US beef prices are very high because of tight supply arising from the US cattle herd sitting at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[28174,5589,138,3588,101064,12967,2082,14349,2454,42899,120,3822,111,139,69,1523,2170,17146,11596,59342,392,41441,199,7677,1961,61,584,3040,16670,80],"class_list":["post-423516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-americas","tag-beef","tag-business","tag-cut","tag-everchanging","tag-farmers","tag-for","tag-import","tag-industry","tag-landscape","tag-likely","tag-meat","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-plan","tag-questions","tag-raises","tag-seemingly","tag-space","tag-stance","tag-take","tag-tariffs","tag-this","tag-to","tag-trade","tag-us","tag-watch","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}