Red meat exports would be impacted by proposed port service fees

Proposed fees for US ports with Chinese ships docking at them raises concerns for the US red meat industry. The US Trade Representative (USTR) office held hearings the week of March 26 on a proposal to impose a service fee for each US port call of a Chinese-operated ship, or a per-net-ton service fee applied on the ship’s carrying capacity.

The US Meat Export Federation (USMEF) submitted comments supporting the overall intent of strengthening the US shipbuilding industry, but shared concerns of the affects on exporters, Drovers reported.

“We totally agree with the intent of this proposal from USTR to support and incentivize US ship building,” says USMEF President and CEO Dan Halstrom. “The reality is that it’s just not feasible today. It’s going to take time. So, in the meantime, we don’t want to have our exporters penalized as we wait for this to happen”.

The proposed fees could also price variety meats out of the marketplace.

“You look at pork and beef variety meats, for example, that might be worth US$ 2 a pound, US$ 1 a pound, or even less than US$ 1 a pound,” Halstrom says. “If you’re looking at a significant per-pound freight rate increase of any kind, that would be a real challenge for some of the lower value items, maybe even at the point where it wouldn’t make sense to save them and export them. It’s about US$ 40 per head for every fed animal slaughtered on the cattle side and on the hog side, it’s a little over US$ 10 a head for every hog slaughtered.”