Why Don’t the British Like US Beef?

Reciprocal relief over a UK-US trade deal has boosted markets and allayed anxieties on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet, many voices in the United Kingdom are skeptical of US agricultural products, especially beef. The difference in farming techniques of the two nations is at the root of the friction, displaying a problem called “non-tariff cheating.”

More US Beef Going to England!

The new trade deal addresses tariffs relating to cars, steel, and agricultural products. US beef exports to the UK were previously subject to a 20% tariff with a quota limitation of 1,000 metric tons. The agreement raises the weight limit to 13,000 metric tons and eliminates the tariff. UK authorities have assured the UK public that imports of US agricultural products will be held to UK safety and inspection rules, but a palpable anti-American sentiment prevails. What’s the British beef?

There are numerous reasons why the British eschew US hamburgers. The chief opposition is not against trade competition but an aversion to the American use of growth hormones, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), GMO feeds, and antibiotics to raise US cattle – all banned in the UK. These differences generally make US beef production more cost-effective than Britain’s “safer” and more humane animal husbandry, which raises alarms for British farmers that US imports could undermine their domestic profitability. These “non-tariff” barriers to trade have risen steadily as animal rights, food safety, climate policies, and organic preferences have entered the consumer conscience through UK and EU market rules.

The British have an understandable point – American consumers, too, increasingly prefer grass-fed, organic, and hormone- or antibiotic-free beef products. Most US beef is grain-fed using GMO crops dependent on glyphosate, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides long banned in the UK and most of Europe. Many Britons favor their local, forage-fed options. They are culturally highly defensive of domestic farmers perceived as threatened by cheaper US agriculture imports that give American farmers a competitive advantage for what is perceived to be an inferior, less healthy product.

Mad Cow Disease and Weak Beef

There is an ironic twist here, as the UK was the geographical origin of Mad Cow Disease when its cows began to suffer symptoms in 1986. The exact cause of infection has never been confirmed, but a common suspicion is that the feeding of rendered scrapie-infected sheep to cattle created it. The British government banned the human consumption of beef organ meats in 1989, and the US prohibited imports of live cattle and sheep from the UK that same year. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the UK prohibited the use of meat remnants in cow feed, but it had banned the use of growth hormones in cows in the 1980s. The two nations’ beef spat has a long history.

Famed British farmer and writer James Rebanks issued an expansive screed against the new Trump trade deal on the eve of its fruition, railing that Americans “can go to hell if they want to exploit and bully us.” To be fair, Mr. Rebanks raises Belted Galloway cows and doubtless took umbrage at US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s allegation against the British on Fox News that “they hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak.” Most British people would counter the opposite – they prefer their grass-fed beef over fatty, grain-fed US steaks and burgers.

Rebanks raised legitimate European concerns about US food products, alleging that standard industrial agricultural methods in the US create higher risk of food-borne disease from pathogens, and that widespread use of antibiotics in animal feed necessary to sustain meat birds and livestock in cramped CAFO quarters risks breeding more virulent antibiotic-resistant strains of illness that will infect humans.

Non-Tariff Wars?

In a rather anti-American diatribe in UnHerd, Rebanks laid out what might be called “non-tariff wars” – the battle over regulatory oversight:

“The trouble is that, if we allow American food into Britain that has been produced with banned pesticides, or in unhygienic factory farms, or from pigs in farrowing crates, then we have to let British farmers use those same methods to compete on price, or else we lose our farms because of the unfair competition. An unfavourable deal could see British farming become a “race to the bottom” to compete on price with the American Midwest.

“For Americans, ‘free trade’ now means they have the right to sell us goods produced in ways we may deem unsafe, and in ways we may even have banned domestically, and if we try to resist, they will come after us, calling this ‘non-tariff cheating.’ They could demand, in time, that we reshape our domestic laws and regulations on the environment and public health, or else allow them to flagrantly flout the same regulations.”

Rebanks is right, to a point. Tighter pig farming regulations in the EU have clearly increased costs for affected farmers and driven up prices for pork, reducing competitiveness for farmers employing more humane methods. A similar battle has been stewing stateside, as California has passed swine laws that directly impact the farming practices in hog-producing states across the nation, and “cage-free” eggs laws in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and other states.

However, the regulatory shoe is arguably on the other foot in Europe, which is essentially trying to impose climate, labor, animal welfare, and other regulatory burdens on the globe through its “Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).” One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure, and this will apply strongly to many US farmers’ treasured practices of beef hormones and GMO grains as feed – both increase profitability by maximizing growth rates.

The US and UK have yet to hammer out details over the beef imports enabled by the new trade deal. UK officials have vowed to keep Britons “safe” from hazardous American beef and chicken. Rebanks has called upon UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to “grow a pair and hold firm to our red [regulatory] lines.” The outcome may prove a boon for US farmers who produce grass-fed, drug-free beef, who may find British favoritism if the nation holds to its red line on non-tariff trade barriers.