Last week, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump held an awkward joint press conference across the Atlantic as they announced a new tariff deal which both parties hailed as a positive step towards a new trade arrangement. While a lot of what we learned about this deal did not come as a surprise, focusing on UK exports of cars and steel, there was one inclusion which was a little unexpected, especially for those involved in its production: beef.
As part of this deal, the two countries have come to a reciprocal arrangement on an allowable amount of tariff-free beef imports. The UK will now allow up to 13,000 metric tonnes of beef to be imported from the US with no tariff fees, thirteen times more than is allowed under current regulations with a 20 per cent tariff rate. In exchange, the UK will be allowed to export the same volume at a reduced tariff rate to the US.
While on the surface this seems like a good deal for the agriculture sector, many are worried that this is yet another action undertaken by “farmer harmer” Starmer which will seriously damage the security of the agriculture sector at home. At the latest Budget, Starmer outlined the removal of the exemption of family farms from paying inheritance tax; from April 2026, farms and their related agricultural assets totalling over £1m would be taxed upon inheritance at 20 per cent.
Farming unions were up in arms about the change, pointing out that this will force the sale of countless farms who operate on small margins and will be unable to weather a new 20 per cent levy, with the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) beginning a campaign to stop the tax which has gathered the support of over a quarter of a million people to date.
Now, farmers are worried that the introduction of a vastly higher volume of US beef to the home market will have grim consequences, not just for the agricultural sector, but for consumers as well. While the government has insisted that food import standards will not slip — in particular ensuring that hormone-treated beef will not be permitted to be imported — some farmers still believe there are few ways to adequately prove this given the comparatively poor traceability of beef in the US. David Barton, the livestock chair of the NFU, highlighted this by noting that “every animal on my farm has a cattle passport from the moment it’s born. So wherever it goes, it can be traced right back to me. Do they have that in the US? I don’t think they do.”
Consumers are equally as sceptical of US beef given the high quality of our home-grown produce. I posed the question of what impact this import deal will have on farmers and consumers to a farming community group I am a member of, and of the 83 responses I received, only one was positive. The majority of respondents criticised either the lack of traceability in US beef or the quality of the produce itself, with one respondent referring to it as “filthy grainlot fed shit”.
In the US, an estimated 95 per cent of all beef brought to market is grain-fed, compared to the UK where around 87 per cent of beef production is largely foraged and grass-fed. This reflects consumer tastes in each respective country — in the UK, consumers tend to prefer lean beef, low in fat, which is produced as a result of the low-fat grass-heavy diet of cattle. In the US, by contrast, consumers tend to prefer a fattier cut of beef, which is much easier to produce by way of grain-feeding.
So who will buy this American beef, which is perceived as being of lesser quality and which is untraceable?
While I must concede that, personally, I find that fattier beef tastes better, especially in steak cuts like ribeye and sirloin, there is no doubt that for health and welfare benefits (and according to the tastes of a majority of the population), UK beef is superior for consumers here. While the UK did import a total of 241,000 tonnes of beef last year, the vast majority of it — almost 200,000 tonnes — comes from Ireland, where standards are just as high. A significant amount of the remaining volume of imported beef comes from EU countries like Poland and the Netherlands, where strict animal welfare standards and a prohibition on hormones also exist.
So who will buy this American beef, which is perceived as being of lesser quality and which is untraceable? Unfortunately, the consensus is that much of the US-produced beef will make its way into the hospitality sector, particularly in restaurants and catering, where consumers are largely unaware of the origin of the food they eat. Neil Shand, the chief executive of the National Beef Association, reinforces this point, stating that there is “a possibility that a lot of it will end up in food service”.
I spoke to Tim Bonner, the chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, about US beef imports, and he agreed that the catering and restaurant industries are where a lot of this beef is likely to end up. Bonner highlighted that even though it is difficult to employ adequate labelling on restaurant meals, consumers have grown to expect it to an extent: “companies like McDonald’s and most quality pubs and restaurants have made a great deal of their sourcing of high welfare, high quality British and Irish beef. Consumers expect to see that on a menu and I don’t think they will have the wool pulled over their eyes.”
For the Countryside Alliance, like other rural non-profit organisations and farming unions, the decision to import more beef from America is a strange one. While all are in good spirits about the increase in beef exports to the US as a result of the deal, few are certain if there is much desire to import their beef in return.
While cattle farmers aren’t predicted to really lose out from this agreement — Bonner notes out that the removal of “inheritance tax changes and agri-environmental schemes are much more fundamental” to the survival of the agriculture industry — it is likely that consumers will. As restaurant prices are expected to drastically rise by as much as 28 per cent, punters could at least be sure that the meals they are paying for are well-sourced and made of high quality, local ingredients. It is possible that this may not be the case for much longer. This is a distinctly unappetising prospect.
