The fallout from Brazil's rotten meat scandal accelerated Monday when China, a huge market, suspended imports and the European Union and South Korea demanded a partial ban. Another ban on Brazilian meat imposed by Chile sparked fears of a trade spat between the two South American partners.
Brazil's acting president, Michel Temer, on Monday hailed the opening of the U.S. market to Brazilian beef, saying that it will help create new jobs and will expand trade for Latin America's largest economy.
The United States and Brazil have agreed to allow access to each other's beef markets after more than a decade of negotiations. Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply has agreed to imports of U.S. beef for the first time in 13 years, USDA announced today. And the U.S. will accept Brazilian beef for the first time since 1999.
Brasilia and Washington have taken the latest technical steps to open the US market to Brazilian beef, which if all runs smoothly together with a 60 to 90 days public consultation period could see the first shipments in the second quarter of next year. Currently because of sanitary barriers linked to Foot and Mouth Disease, FMD, Brazil can only export industrialized beef to the US.
Saudi Arabia has suspended imports of Brazilian beef, Brazil’s agriculture ministry said Tuesday, and became the largest country to stop purchases after confirmation of a 2010 case of atypical mad cow disease.
A scientific commission from the World Organization for Animal Health, OIE, will commence in February to study the case of atypical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, BSE, reported in the south of Brazil among a herd of animals fed on grassland.