Why did the chicken cross the ocean?

Effective immediately, China is lifting a five-year ban on American poultry according the Associated Press.  This is great news, especially after the country’s October’s commitment to annually buy $40-50 billion of U.S. agricultural products.

Why exactly had the communist nation banned our poultry?  The Office of the United States Trade Representative released a statement explaining it in more detail, but it still doesn’t make sense:

China has banned all U.S. poultry since January 2015 due to an avian influenza outbreak in December 2014, even though the United States has been free of this disease since August 2017. The United States exported over $500 million worth of poultry products to China in 2013.The United States is the world’s second largest poultry exporter, with global exports of poultry meat and products of $4.3 billion last year.

One of the mitigating factors is an outbreak of African swine fever which obliterated China’s pork market.  American chicken exports could really flourish in China as a replacement for that source of protein.  

The industry responded very favorably to this news.

“The announcement sent shares of major U.S. chicken processers, Sanderson Farms, Tyson Foods and Pilgrim’s Pride to new highs for the year Thursday,” the AP reported.

U.S. Senator David Perdue of Georgia was also happy. “As the #1 🐔 producing state, this expanded access will have a huge impact on Georgia’s poultry producers,” he tweeted.

United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer added, “China is an important export market for America’s poultry farmers, and we estimate they will now be able to export more than $1 billion worth of poultry and poultry products each year to China. Reopening China to U.S. poultry will create new export opportunities for our poultry farmers and support thousands of workers employed by the U.S. poultry industry.”

Hat Tip: The Daily Wire

About The Author

Mark was a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, and served as the national coordinator. He left the organization to work more broadly on expanding the self-governance movement beyond the partisan divide. Mark appears regularly on television in outlets as diverse as MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC. He’s highly sought after for the tea party perspective from print and electronic media outlets, from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Examiner, Politico and the The Hill. Mark blogs at MarkMeckler.com, and his opinion editorials regularly run in many of the leading political newspapers both on and offline. Mark has a BA in English from San Diego State University and graduated with honors from University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1988. He practiced real estate and business law for almost a decade. For the last eleven years of his legal career he specialized in Internet advertising law. When not fighting for the future of our nation, Mark is an avid horseman, and lives in rural northern California with his wife Patty and two children.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

thirteen + six =