U.S. meat exports poised for continued growth under new U.S-Japan agreement

The trade deal with U.S. and Japan is set to boost American beef and pork exports.

Japan is our second-largest market for pork and beef. The U.S. Meat Export Federation says that the agreement brought a sense of relief to Japan.

According to Dan Halstrom, “I think the fact that a deal had been done on autos, which is obviously one of the big sticky points with Japan, kind of laid to rest any concerns there might have been on possible retaliation from the Japanese side should a deal not have been reached.”

Bottom line, Halstrom says that this is a big deal and the numbers themselves prove it.

“When you’re talking about your second-largest export market in the world, 2024, we saw about $1.9 billion on beef and about $1.4 billion on pork, for a total of about $3.3 billion in sales, and it’s been pretty consistent right in that range,” he adds.

Halstrom was in Japan when the Trump adminsitration announced the deal. He met with several importers and distributors while there.

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