Will a new presidential administration bring new opportunities for trade? U.S. Meat Export Federation Vice President of Economic Analysis Erin Borror says there are two regions of particular interest.
The first is the USMCA, which is up for review in 2026.
“Obviously our key trading partners of Canada and Mexico, we need to maintain that tariff-free trade and very minimal type of SPS barriers, and so that strong upgrade in USMCA needs to be maintained,” Borror says.
The other key region will be the United Kingdom as a potential new opportunity, she explains.
“The UK is the only major importer of which the U.S. has basically no market share, and it’s a one-way street with trade,” Borror says. “And we actually lost access through Brexit. We lost our duty-free access because the high-quality beef quota stayed with Europe.”
She says the U.S. has basically no access into the UK for U.S. beef, which is a $2 billion market. The pork side also has tremendous potential. The UK imports about 630,000 tons of pork a year or $2.8 billion.
“We need no tariffs, no quotas,” Borror says. “UK benefits from practically unfettered access into the U.S., and we need the same into the UK. So again, it’s only opportunities, really only upside. And hopefully with
trade with friends, the UK could be one of those markets where there should be further opportunities –
really, for U.S. agriculture, certainly for U.S. red meat.”
