USDA to lift more than yearlong ban on Mexican cattle imports in 30 days

Reopening aims to ease record beef prices as U.S. herd remains near historic lows

The U.S. plans to resume importing Mexican cattle at the Douglas, Arizona, port of entry in 30 days and eventually open two additional ports of entry in New Mexico, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Thursday. The phased reopening comes more than a year after the USDA first restricted imports in November 2024, when the New World screwworm was detected in southern Mexico.

Mexico typically sends about a million calves across the border each year, accounting for roughly 5% of the cattle processed in the U.S., according to the USDA. The loss of those imports exacerbated a domestic cattle shortage that has squeezed meatpackers and sent beef prices to record levels. Government data shows retail ground-beef prices at close to $7 a pound on average, while sirloin steaks exceed $14 a pound.

Rollins said the border closure gave the agency time to increase construction of sterile-fly facilities, improve surveillance for the parasite along the border, and add screening layers for imported cattle. Mexican cattle entering the country will pass through a disinfectant dip vat. Female screwworm flies mate only once, so the release of sterile male flies helps suppress the parasite’s population. MSI previously reported that the USDA opened a Texas facility to disperse sterile screwworm flies from American soil in February and was building additional breeding capacity.

“It is time to safely open,” Rollins said. The parasitic fly had been absent from the U.S. since the 1960s, but in June, agriculture officials identified it in a three-week-old Texas calf. Dozens of U.S. cases have since been confirmed, all in Texas except for one involving a dog in New Mexico.

The import resumption is contentious. Some ranchers, including the cattle trade group R-Calf, have argued against reopening the border. Bill Bullard, the head of R-Calf, said the border should remain closed until the parasite is completely eradicated.

“This is a real threat to U.S. livestock,” Bullard has said.

Wesley Batista Filho, chief executive of JBS’s U.S. division, said reopening the border is “the biggest thing that can happen in the short term” to change the beef supply, speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s Global Food Forum in June.

The Trump administration has taken other steps to address beef prices. The Justice Department has launched an antitrust probe of the nation’s largest meatpackers and announced plans to provide funding to boost smaller meatpacking operations. USDA officials have also called on major supermarkets to lower beef prices.