EU pork suppliers to benefit from zero-duties policy adopted by Mexico

As part of its effort to combat food price inflation, the Mexican government has suspended import duties on pork, beef and poultry through the end of 2022. Although the measure seems to favor countries from both Americas, in fact, it opens a gate for EU pork exporters which are expected to benefit most from this policy, according to a statement from Erin Borror, U.S. Meat Export Federation vice president of economic analysis.
“This general policy has been done by Mexico in the past and actually even last year, they again opened a 10,000-ton duty-free quota for pork cuts, and they have opened periodic 30,000-ton quotas for poultry. Brazil is only a factor on the chicken side and remains ineligible to ship both pork and beef to Mexico,” Borror says. “So on the pork side, the size of the Mexican market and its general open nature, that is certainly drawing the competitors into this space. Europe has been in the market really making a splash when we were under those retaliatory metal tariffs from 2018 to 2019, for about a year. Europe has gone from basically zero import share to 1.6% last year,” she said for the National Hog Farmer magazine.
Also, she mentioned that all U.S. and Canadian pork and beef (including variety meat and processed products) already enter Mexico at zero duty under the North American Free Trade Agreement and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Brazilian pork and beef are not eligible for Mexico, so she explains that the main beneficiaries of this policy change will be European pork suppliers.
Borror sees very little impact on Mexico’s beef imports, nearly all of which already enter the market duty-free from the United States, Canada and Nicaragua. Australia exports small volumes of skirt meat to Mexico, but this is classified as beef variety meat and remains subject to a 14.6% duty under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. she also believes that Brazil will be the primary beneficiary on the poultry side as imports from other major suppliers, including the United States, already enter Mexico at zero duty.