Japan’s tariff rate on beef imports from the United States under their safeguard mechanism has gone up and now rises from 38.5 percent to 50 percent for the rest of the current fiscal year. That’s because there’s been enough frozen beef shipped to Japan to trigger that tariff. Nebraska Cattlemen Association President Troy Stowater says while they never like to see tariffs rising, the good news is we’re shipping them a large amount of beef.

He says even though Japanese tariffs on Australian beef are lower than on the U.S., they don’t have as much beef to ship to Japan as does the United States.

Stowater says the U.S. also has an advantage over Australia for the Chinese market. He says several Chinese buyers continue to come to Nebraska seeking high quality beef and like what Nebraska has to offer.

Just last week China imposed a temporary beef ban on products from six Australian processors. The action was due to label non compliance.