[icegreentea2]

American beef imports are heavily driven by how US beef production and consumption is structured. Basically, the US focuses beef production on creating high quality cuts (ie, steaks and other cuts with high marbling/fat), because that's what a large portion of domestic consumption is (and it's highest value). This leaves the US with a very large amount of high fat off cuts that aren't very marketable on their own. Imports are typically ultra lean cuts (which are also not very usable), and these two sources are then combined into ground beef.

Here's one source, but there are plenty of others you can find: https://tscra.org/we-have-94-million-cows-why-do-we-import-b...

Basically, classic value chain optimization.

[colechristensen]

Yes, imports and tariffs reshape markets