Brazil fully met its beef export quota to the US in record time
The weekly report shows that Brazil fully met its quota on January 6. The country exports to the U.S. through the so-called Most Favored Nation (MFN) quota, allocated to “Other Countries,” a mechanism applied to countries without a trade agreement with the United States and with a limited volume.
The accelerated pace of Brazilian exports is not unprecedented, but it intensifies every year. In 2025, Brazil reached its quota on January 17. In 2024, the limit was reached in March, and the year before, only in May. With the quota exhausted, all Brazilian beef shipped to the United States during the remainder of 2026 will be subject to the out-of-quota tariff. Currently, this tariff is 26.4%.
In addition to the shortage of beef in the US, the record was due to a recent change in US trade policy.
Although the quota for “Other Countries” was already restricted (originally 65,000 tons), US President Donald Trump announced last week the elimination of 13,000 tons of that volume, which were transferred to the UK in exchange for reciprocal access for US beef to the British market.
In practice, the measure reduced the quota available to Brazil and other exporters to just 52,000 tons in 2026, accelerating the depletion of the permitted volume.
Another factor that contributed to the rapid depletion of the quota was the amount of Brazilian beef already stored in customs cold storage facilities in the United States, whose release was scheduled for the beginning of the new calendar year. Exporters and importers sought to bring forward their operations to mitigate, even if only temporarily, the impact of the additional tariff.
Without a free trade agreement with the United States, Brazilian beef access to the U.S. market remains subject to a system of quotas and tariffs. In contrast, Australia has a bilateral tariff-free quota of 378,214 tons in 2026. As of January 12, Australia had shipped 10,660 tons (2.82%) to the U.S. market.
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