China just handed US ranchers their biggest gift in two years, and it barely had to do anything to deliver it.
Beijing renewed export licenses for hundreds of US beef processing plants on Thursday - including plants owned by Tyson Foods and Cargill - as Trump and Xi Jinping toured the Temple of Heaven the same morning.
More than 400 US beef plants lost the ability to ship to China over the past year because their export permissions, granted between March 2020 and April 2021, simply expired without renewal.
That accounts for roughly 65% of all once-registered US beef facilities, which means the shutdown wasn't an active ban so much as a slow leak that hit the entire industry.
US beef exports to China collapsed as a result, with volume falling 48% from 2024 and dollar value dropping 69%, according to the US Meat Export Federation. The 2022 peak of $1.7 billion in beef exports to China has fallen to roughly $500 million last year.
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Agriculture has been the lowest-friction part of any US-China deal, since there's no security concern with cattle, no chip technology to protect, and no rare earth dependency.
"This shows China has released some goodwill gestures in areas that aren't too critical to US-China trade relations," Xu Hongzhi, a senior analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultants, told Reuters.
Cargill CEO Brian Sikes is part of the US business delegation traveling with Trump in Beijing, and Tyson Foods owns several of the newly renewed plants - meaning two major US food companies got an immediate optics win.
US beef producers had spent months pleading with the White House to put their issue on the summit agenda, and they got their wish.
Reopening 65% of the previously registered plants doesn't bring volume back to 2022 levels overnight, since Chinese buyers will need to re-establish contracts and currency moves still favor cheaper South American beef in many cases.
The full Trump-Xi deal hasn't been unveiled, but beef is the first piece to show up publicly - which suggests both sides wanted an early win they could point to.
Cattle futures are the price to watch this week.
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