4mo ago

Trump's 'almost impossible' plan to bring in more eggs is already flailing: report

www.rawstory.com

Summary

The Trump administration's effort to import eggs to offset losses from bird flu is struggling due to logistical challenges and global supply constraints.

Many countries, including Turkey, are prioritizing domestic supply and imposing export taxes.

Experts warn that replacing U.S. egg production with imports is unrealistic, as the industry operates on a local scale.

To meet demand, the U.S. would need 70 to 100 million eggs in the next month, a goal analysts say is nearly impossible to achieve quickly.

16 comments

Maybe we could ask Canada for eggs… oh wait… how about Mexico…. Hm. Gee. It’s almost like pissing off our trade partners for self-aggrandizement and market manipulation was a bad idea…
It's almost like isolationism was a bad idea or something.
- I don't need anyone else!
  ...
  Why isn't anyone helping me?!
- Importing fresh eggs is probably a non-starter, anyway. Look around your country at the price of eggs, it varies a lot even at large scales. Eggs don’t ship that well.
  But throwing money at basic science research could, actually, solve the problem. Eradicate bird flu and the prices will drop. But you’d need a pro-science administration to do that.
Many countries, including Turkey, are prioritizing domestic supply and imposing export taxes.
I am not at all sure that we can import from Turkey.
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/inspection/import-export/import-guidance/sourcing-egg-products-and-shell-eggs-foreign-countries
Sourcing Egg Products and Shell Eggs From Foreign Countries
"Shell Eggs" is the term for whole, unbroken eggs in trade parlance.
Because of the expected shortage of egg products in the United States because of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in egg laying hens, companies that use egg products are asking about foreign sources of eggs and egg products.
To be eligible to export egg products to the United States, countries must have an egg products inspection system that is equivalent to FSIS’s inspection system. To determine whether a country maintains an equivalent inspection system, FSIS conducts a thorough document review of that country’s relevant laws, regulations, and other official publications, and one or more on-site audits of the country’s relevant inspection system. If FSIS tentatively concludes that the system is equivalent based on that review, FSIS proposes to list the country in the egg products inspection regulations as eligible to export egg products to the United States. FSIS then evaluates any comments received in response to the proposal and determines whether to develop the final rule. If, after evaluating comments and any other available data, FSIS concludes that the country’s system is equivalent, FSIS publishes a final rule listing the country in the regulations as eligible to export egg products to the U.S.
So, basically, there's a long review process.
There are two countries authorized to export egg products to the United States: Canada and the Netherlands.
And the USDA needs to conduct the review.
So we are in a situation where Trump has managed to, in the matter of a few weeks, do his utmost to:
Antagonize Canada.
Antagonize the Netherlands.
Lay off thousands of workers from the agency that has to conduct this extensive legal review to authorize any other countries, a bunch of whom were just judicially reinstated for the time being.
While Trump isn't responsible for creating the pandemic that created the egg shortage, and that's really the elephant in the room here, I can't really imagine a worse possible way that he could be responding to it.
- This is Trump, the same guy who thought that the best way to make COVID numbers go down is to stop recording COVID cases. He has the most rudimentary grasp on cause and effect that his solution to not enough eggs is to remove all safeguards and import whatever another country thinks qualifies as eggs. And that's ignoring eggs with bird flu. It's fully within his scope of inept decisions to enable DOGE to gut the FDA and expedite foreign eggs.
  It isn't impossible to get the eggs. It's impossible to get the eggs that we expect.
- I mean, I fully expect him to try to throw out the regulations that require all of that checking to import eggs.
  It would be nice if he got rid of the regulations requiring eggs to be washed, like pretty much every other developed country.
- It's Denmark that Trump has directly antagonized with all the Greenland stuff, not the Netherlands.
  That said, the Netherlands is so ride or die for Canada that I wouldn't be surprised if they told the US to get fucked out of spite.
- Dear federal employee, this is Elon again. I haven't seen a response to my last email. Are you mad at me?
  This week I'd like you to provide evidence that you laid an egg for your Country. Failure to comply will result in me thinking that maybe you don't love me. Can you do just this one little thing for me? Come on, one little egg.
OH MY GOD WITH THE FUCKING EGGS ALREADY...
- Maybe Marx was wrong, maybe eggs are the opiate of the masses and maybe Trump truly bungling this fucking clown show will spur action. Maybe not... but I'd hope so.
Sell eggs to US? Who would do such a terrible thing to them?!? Trump treats every country that sells more stuff to the US as an aggressor, so why would anyone want to sell them anything? (And once eggs are no longer needed, trump would put tariffs to ruin all business that helped him out)
elon is gonna hire a bunch of h1b's to lay eggs
- He can ask rfk jr, parasites lays thousands of eggs a day per parasite
  
  And considering about a billion other people in the world have the same worm that rfk had, that’s a lot of eggs
No, why would you trade with other countries and widen the trade deficit? Apparently that's a big deal.

16 comments