Although beef prices are at record levels with ground beef averaging almost $7 per pound, and other cuts of beef are at multi-decade highs, there may be some help on the way. The Santa Teresa, New Mexico port, the largest crossing point for cattle coming from Mexico, will be reopening to feeder cattle imports on Sept. 24th. Mexican cattle imports have been banned since May of 2025 because of detection of screwworm flies in northern Mexico. This ban on Mexican feeder came at the same time that the U.S. beef herd was at its smallest point since the 1950s. The USDA Cattle on Feed report indicates that feedlot placements are down over 3%, which is the lowest placements for this date since 2015, so adding Mexican feeder cattle to feedlot placements may help to begin to bring down the price of beef in grocery stores over the next few months. On average, it takes 130 to 180 days for a 750 lb yearling feeder steer to reach 1,200–1,250 lbs before being slaughtered
Donald Trump’s recent tariff spat with Canada includes banning importation of Canadian dairy products, because he claims that Canada is supporting their dairy industry which is creating an unfair environment for US dairy products. But Leonard Polzin, dairy market specialist at the University of Wisconsin, points out that Canada has good reasons to protect Canadian dairy producers because Canada has only a small dairy industry. He also notes that Wisconsin alone produces more milk than all of Canada combined, and U.S. dairy producers are highly efficient at large-scale production. He contends that if the US dairy products are allowed in to compete with Canadian dairy products, Canadian producers will go out of business and leave Canadians without alternatives, and the US already runs a significant trade surplus in dairy with Canada.
Agricultural trade with our nearest neighbors is important to farmers and ranchers and related businesses, and in 2025, according to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, agricultural trade with Canada and Mexico accounted for almost $60 billion dollars. In 2025, U.S. agricultural exports to Canada totaled about $28.68 billion, making Canada the No. 2 U.S. agricultural export market behind Mexico’s position as the top destination of U.S. agricultural products at $37.5 billion.
While there has been considerable commentary about how the ongoing war with Iran is causing fuel and fertilizer prices to rise for farmers, there is also increasing concern that those fuel costs will drive food prices higher for consumers in the coming months. Ricky Volpe, PhD, Associate Professor of agribusiness at California Polytechnic State University, is warning that rising fuel prices are a key driver of upcoming food inflation. He contends that higher diesel and crude oil costs are “absolutely going to filter through” into food prices over the coming months because those increased costs will also affect underlying industries that include warehousing, cold storage and long-haul trucking.
Henry Kissinger wrote, “90% of politicians give the other 10% a bad name.
