Its not foot and mouth, its BSE or Mad Cow disease. And FYI, its not about protecting the ranchers. (It actually hurts the ranchers, more on this in a minute) When BSE was found in Japan so many years ago, Canada banned Japanese Beef for seven years. I believe that Japan has told the US that Canada needs pay back. Japan is a big trading partner with the US, so the border is closed to all live Canadian beef. So, now the border is opened to processed beef from animals of something like 2 years or younger. The reason the lack of Canadian beef hurts your people is that now your Cattle industry has inflated prices and the feed prices are deflated. The feed lots are empty, and the cattle are being grown, fed and processed with Canadian labour. That means that the longer this goes on the fewer feedlots and meat processors will stay in business in the US because of the shortage of beef. In the end the Canadians will have the feed lot and processing jobs. The common belief of the beef industry was that NAFTA made the beef prices in the US drop and a rise in prices in Canada. The likely truth is not that NAFTA impacted the market that much. The truth is that the Canadian beef industry benefitted from a very favorable exchange rate. The closed border coddles the US ranchers at the expense of the whole US beef industry and makes the Canadian beef industry (from rancher to processor) a stronger competitor. The Canadians are not out to get the Americans. The way things look from here, you will make the competition stronger.
