Washington (AFP) – The United States is importing Turkish and South Korean eggs to ease an avian flu-fueled supply crunch that has pushed up prices across the country, Donald Trump’s agriculture secretary confirmed Friday.
Brooke Rollins told reporters in Washington that imports from Turkey and South Korea had already begun and that the White House was also in talks with other countries about temporarily importing their eggs.
“We are talking in the hundreds of millions of eggs for the short term,” she added.
The cost of eggs has skyrocketed due to multiple bird flu outbreaks in the United States, forcing farmers to cull at least 30 million birds and sharply constraining supply.
Egg prices became a rallying point for Trump in last year’s presidential election campaign as he sought to capitalize on voters’ frustrations with the rising cost of essential items during his predecessor Joe Biden’s presidency.
After returning to office in January, Trump tasked Rollins with the job of boosting the supply of eggs, and bringing down prices.
In the weeks since, producers in several countries have reported American interest in their produce, with the Polish and Lithuanian poultry associations telling AFP that they had been approached by US diplomatic staff on the hunt for fresh eggs.
“There is a shortage of eggs in many countries,” Katarzyna Gawronska, director of Poland’s National Chamber of Poultry and Feed Producers, said recently. “The key question would be what financial conditions would be offered by the Americans.”
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently noted that wholesale egg prices have fallen by almost 50 percent since late February, which suggests that consumer prices could soon start to fall.
“The downward trend underscores the effectiveness of USDA’s approach,” the agency said in a statement.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Rollins said that the imports of eggs would stop once US poultry farmers were able to ramp up supply.
“When our chicken populations are repopulated and we’ve got a full egg laying industry going again – hopefully in a couple of months – we then shift back to our internal egg layers and moving those eggs out onto the shelf,” she said.
Americans are so goddamned spoiled. Their ancestors ate what was in season, and then more recently their great-grandparents just ate what was in their budget or produced in their backyard. No food item was ever and will ever be guaranteed on this earth.
If humans are having trouble due to a disease in our foodstuff, we just go without it for a while. It’s fine. Not a big deal. That’s human resilience.
But no. How dare Americans be inconvenienced. Pathetic.
Signed, an American
In 2020, the UK imported 46% of the food it consumed. No one country provides more than 11% of those imports, a picture which has been stable for some time. By value, £48 billion of FFD was imported and £21.4 billion was exported.
As the U.S. population has grown and diversified, the volume and variety of food consumed domestically have also increased, driving up imports of a range of agricultural products. Over the past decade, the share of imports in overall food and beverage consumption has trended upward, from 13.5 percent in 2013 to 17.3 percent in 2022.
tell me again how importing food is uniquely an American thing.
I’m Canadian and eggs are still like $2.70 (US) a dozen despite several outbreaks. This is just what happens when you dismantle all government services.
True. Everything in the US is just so fucked, and it feels like a great big cycle of fuckery. And American narcissism is not helping.
Are we great again yet?
Best America ever. What a flourishing country. Having to beg literal former enemies for food. Literally the best. Very great.
Richtest country in the world. What a shit show.
And what do Americans do? They’re memeing away. To them, 5 people holding signs on a sidewalk is a „protest“.
Meanwhile in Europe, entire districts would be on fire right now.
the Americans have actually begun burning things down, particularly tesla dealerships
Damn these domestic terrorists /s
Meanwhile in Europe, entire districts would be on fire right now.
All of France would be on fire.
i think folks are in for a treat. As an avid egg lover one thing i have noticed about all the chinese eggs on Little Red Note is how well their chickens eat. Their eggs tend to have very firm, very orange yolks, much more like what i’m able to get from home raised chickens here. The chinese have a dish where they fill the yolk of an egg with sausage and boil the whole thing. I would never be able to do this with the kroger eggs i have to buy.
The store eggs available to me, even fancy ones, tend towards much paler, weaker yolks.
i suspect these imported eggs are going to be from well fed chickens, i doubt we will see any where i live but i would jump at the chance to just try them!
I really doubt they can import enough eggs to affect the price even if they import hundreds of millions (which I also doubt).
In 2022 the USA distributed almost 100 billion eggs.
I hope they’re very thankful for it.
Is this America First?
I hate that headlines need to start specifying North or South Korea now…
