Americans are paying as much as $14.99 a lb for beef. This compares to $2.48-3.10 a lb in Australia (converting from $A per kilo.). One reason: US quotas on beef imports from Australia. “Since 1995, the US beef market has operated under a quota with county specific allocations to major supplies. Australia has a beef quota of 378,000 tonnes, with an import duty of roughly US4c/kg. The import duty funds the US beef ‘checkoff’, a fund used for generic promotion of beef in the US.”
Everyone could eat more, better quality, cheaper meat if there were free trade.
