It’s been a solid month again for pork, says U.S. Meat Export Federation President (USMEF) and CEO Dan Halstrom. Although numbers were down slightly from last year at 238,922 metric tons, July exports accounted for a larger share of production, according to data released by USDA and compiled by the USMEF.
“It’s really the same theme that we’ve heard for a while,” Halstrom says. “Broad-based results from a lot of different countries are contributing to it. The leader continues to be Mexico.”
He points out that Central America in particular was at 14,500 tons, 35% above a year ago.
“Central America continues to be amazing on pork,” he says. “You’ve got regions like the Caribbean, they continue to perform, up again this month.”
Another highlight for pork is recent news about increased quotas into the European Union.
“We’ve been saying all along that in these negotiations, pork is sort of the quiet potential winner here in terms of incremental access,” Halstrom says. “And Europe is not generally thought of as a destination for pork exports, but there has been some history in the past with significant tonnages going there, and this might allow us to rekindle that demand, especially on items like ham meat.”
Pork variety meat demand was strong in July, with exports posting the second largest volume this year, Halstrom says. He notes pork value fell 4% to $680.9 million, largely reflecting the 10% decline in pork variety meat prices due to China’s tariffs.
Through the first seven months of 2025, pork exports were 4% below last year’s record pace in both volume (1.69 million mt) and value ($4.8 billion).
A Major Thorn in the Side for U.S. Beef
U.S. beef performed very well in July in leading market South Korea, as well as in the Caribbean, Central America, Chile, the Philippines and Africa. But with shipments to China nearly halted due to a lack of eligible plants, July beef exports were down 19% from a year ago to 89,579 mt, the lowest in five years. Export value declined 17% to $752.5 million, the lowest since January 2023.
“We were down about 19% at just about 90,000 metric tons. The vast majority of that decrease is attributable to China, which we fully expected,” Halstrom adds. “China continues to be a major thorn in our side in terms of lack of access, with the vast majority of the beef plants and cold storages not listed for China.”
Halstrom says this continues to be a very high profile priority for USTR and USDA, and USMEF is pushing strongly in that area.
“Outside of China, demand continues to be pretty resilient. Korea had a very good month in the month of July. We saw growth in excess of 10% there. While down slightly, Japan had a fairly good month as well,” he says.
From January through July, beef exports were 8% below last year in volume (691,800 mt) and down 7.5% in value ($5.67 billion).
