China's commerce officials blamed surging imports for a decline in beef prices to justify "safeguard" tariffs on imported beef announced last week. In fact, gyrations in Chinese beef prices were due to destabilizing events in China's own market.
Chinese officials suggested that a rising trend in beef imports drove down beef prices during 2019-2024. In fact, 2019-24 was a 6-year-long beef bubble that inflated and then popped. The phony "analysis" by China's Commerce Ministry ignored the inverted-U-shaped pattern of prices: the average price of beef reported by China's Ag Ministry rose 20% from RMB 73.20 per KG in 2024 to a peak of RMB 87.59 in 2022. Then the price fell 18% to RMB 71.89 in 2024. During 2019-2022 China's beef imports AND its domestic prices both increased, undermining the claim that rising imports caused prices to fall. Beef imports then stabilized between 2022 and 2024. Prices declined sharply in 2024, but the increase in imports that year was much more moderate than in earlier years.
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| Average annual wholesale prices from China Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Import data from China Customs Administration. |
The rise in beef imports during 2019-21 helped fill a meat shortage in China that turned into a glut. Monthly price data from China's Ag Ministry show that the increase in beef prices occurred during a concentrated period of 2019-20. This was exactly the time that China had a severe pork shortage due to an African swine fever epidemic. The boom in beef prices exactly corresponds to the much larger spike in pork prices during that time. The shortage of pork spurred an increase in demand for beef that drove up prices. Most of the increase in China's beef imports occurred during 2020.
The peak in beef prices during 2021-22 corresponds to the recovery of the pork industry which drove down pork prices, reducing the incentive to substitute beef for pork. Beef imports continued growing at a more moderate pace. 2022-23 was a time of high commodity prices across the board.
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| Data from China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. |
In early 2023 China's demand for beef and many other commodities crashed. After China ended its zero-covid lockdowns in late 2022 the economy began to tank in early 2023. Beef demand peaked and beef prices began a severe decline. Pork was in excess supply as a handful of huge pork companies raced to open industrial-scale farms and capture market share. The dairy industry also encountered a glut, and a massive cull of dairy cows added to the beef supply in 2023.
Last year this blog discussed the recent fluctuation in China's beef and dairy industry and the announcement of emergency measures to bail out beef and dairy farms in September 2024. The safeguard tariff investigation began about 3 months later; bailouts for beef and dairy were also ordered in the 2025 "Document No. 1" on rural policy.
Converting China's domestic prices to U.S. dollars and comparing them with export prices reported in FAO's GIEWS database shows that China's price rose much faster than U.S. or Brazilian prices during 2019-20, creating a huge spread between Chinese beef prices and imported beef prices. Brazil is the predominant supplier of China's imports. Brazil's price is still about half of China's internal price after the drop in Chinese prices. U.S. beef prices have risen to parity with Chinese prices.
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| China's Ministry of Ag price converted to USD. U.S. and Brazil export prices from UN FAO GIEWS database. |
China is blaming its trading partners for gyrations in its beef industry that actually were created by destabilizing events within China and by subsidized overexpansion of its beef and pork production capacity. The surge of beef imports filled a vacuum in meat supply during 2019-20. When China's domestic pork and beef producers overexpanded and drove down prices, officials spuriously interpreted correlation as "causation" and falsely blamed the industry's troubles on imports.
Brazilian industry groups quoted by Reuters raised concerns about the Chinese tariffs. An Australian official suggested that the Chinese safeguards are an example of departure from the rules-based trading order and inconsistent application of rules. A kowtowing Uruguayan meat industry official praised China's transparency and its adherence to WTO law in imposing the safeguard measures.
Fortunately, the safeguards will not have a major impact on exporters because global beef supplies are tight and prices are high. The safeguard tariffs don't kick in until trading partners' exports exceed an annual quota based on recent export volumes. Brazilian and Australian officials were confident they could find other markets for their beef if sales to China are curtailed. China's beef imports for the first 11 months of 2025 were about the same as the previous year. Beef prices in China are up nearly 8% year-over-year in December 2025--one of the few agricultural commodities with rising prices this year.
