By Paul Sakkal and Mike Foley
US beef could be allowed into Australia for the first time in decades through a biosecurity rule review to secure the removal of tariffs as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to meet President Donald Trump later this month.
Government officials familiar with preparations for trade talks said that biosecurity laws could be safely tweaked to allow US beef into Australia without compromising safety, risking criticism from farming groups.
Donald Trump works a drive-thru window at McDonald’s during last year’s election campaign.Credit: AP
The officials, unable to speak publicly about the strategy to deal with Trump’s trade war, said US pork was too risky to import due to the risk of spreading disease, but that Australia was preparing to use beef as a carrot to land a deal with the hamburger-loving president.
The Trump administration has imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium imports and a 10 per cent impost on all other goods that Trade Minister Don Farrell objected to in a meeting with his US counterpart Jamieson Greer in Paris this week.
“I have asked for the removal of all tariffs on Australian products,” Farrell told the ABC on Thursday. “The trade relationship between Australia and the United States is overwhelmingly in the United States’ interests.”
Albanese has not made any concessions to the US in the face of its trade barriers and demands for increased military spending, instead emphasising his ideal of “progressive patriotism” and Australian sovereignty.
But at a meeting between Albanese and Trump – expected to be held either on the sidelines of a G7 meeting in Canada, or separately in the US later this month – the prime minister will press Australia’s case with an offer that could include changes to beef import rules.
US beef was banned from Australia in 2003, following an outbreak in cattle of mad cow disease – an illness that can cause a fatal brain disorder in humans.
However, the US’s mad cow outbreak subsided and Australia’s ban on US beef was lifted in 2019. Biosecurity officials are still reviewing whether to permit cattle raised in Mexico and Canada but slaughtered in the US into Australia, as the Trump administration has demanded.
“Our farmers are blocked from selling almost anywhere ... Australia won’t let us sell beef,” US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in April, in an oversimplification of the current situation.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is preparing his arguments to avoid Trump’s tariffs.Credit: Justin McManus
It is unclear whether the outcome of that review will be the card Albanese plays in his discussion with Trump, which another government source noted was not a “deal-or-no-deal” moment and could lead to months of talks.
The source added that ministers were wary of Trump’s erratic approach and were unwilling to “sell the farm” by giving in to US demands to water down the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme or back away from charging tech giants for news.
The prime minister’s office was contacted for comment.
Experts, including former inspector-general of biosecurity Helen Scott-Orr, told this masthead in April that they endorsed Australia’s ban on US beef exports from cattle raised outside the US. Australia’s disease-free status depended on strict biosecurity protocols, they said.
“We do not use them [biosecurity protocols] as non-tariff trade barriers. When other countries query our biosecurity requirements, we have to justify them and show that we are applying proper controls to allow trade to all those countries to continue,” Scott-Orr said.
“The requirements we have are very cautious because the consequences would be huge.”
The Albanese government’s consideration of permitting US beef imports suggests it has found a pathway through these complications.
In April, Albanese said he would negotiate with the US but would never undermine biosecurity.
Illustration by Matt Golding
“We will not weaken the measures that protect our farmers and producers from the risks of disease or contamination,” he said in a separate statement.
Agriculture sector consultant Patrick Hutchison, of Gibraltar Strategic Advisory, said while the US was a major competitor in the biggest markets for beef, like China, Japan and Korea, Australia’s population of 27 million was likely too small to become a major target for Americans.
“US exports would only play a very niche role in the market here, like in food service or potentially, US-aligned supermarket chains,” Hutchinson said.
The US is the biggest market for Australian beef, which is used in 6 billion hamburgers across the United States each year, and industry calculates tariffs would cost US consumers an additional $600 million a year.
National Farmers Federation President David Jochinke said he welcomed Albanese’s ongoing commitment not to compromise biosecurity rules to satisfy US demands.
“The science-based, biosecurity assessment processes undertaken by the Australian government are crucial in ensuring imports are safe,” Jochinke said.
Australia’s historic trade with the US dipped into a deficit for the first time earlier this year, just as Trump was preparing to announce tariffs.
However, it returned to surplus on Thursday, handing Albanese and Farrell a more powerful argument because most countries, unlike Australia, sell more to the US than they buy from it.
The US hostility towards trade under Trump has forced its allies to open up new trading avenues. Australia is closing in on a long-delayed free-trade deal with the EU, with Trade Minister Don Farrell meeting European counterparts in Paris this week.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer secured a partial exemption from metals tariffs when he visited Washington, creating a precedent for such an arrangement and fuelling Coalition calls for Albanese to get the same outcome.
The prime minister said on Tuesday he would “certainly” raise metals tariff with Trump, and on Thursday argued the case for a long-delayed EU trade deal that Farrell is now negotiating was bolstered by the chaos caused by Trump’s tariff spree.
“I think the context of global trade is perhaps what is new. The context of global trade which has been the subject of disruption,” he said at a press conference in Melbourne.
Less than 5 per cent of Australia’s goods exports go to the US.
Coalition leader Sussan Ley has broken from her predecessor Peter Dutton on trade. Dutton repeatedly claimed he would have secured a tariff exemption. Ley instead said on Wednesday “the Coalition wants the government to succeed because that is in our national interest”.
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