Latest / Professional Ag Marketing Podcast / China reopens to U.S. beef — what that means | Cattle Market Talk May 15th, 2026

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China reopens to U.S. beef — what that means | Cattle Market Talk May 15th, 2026 · Professional Ag Marketing Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Cattle Talk Podcast.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your weekly breakdown of cattle market fundamentals, key news, and the insights shaping the industry.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Trading commodity futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Today is May 15th.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I've got Jeff here with us today.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to talk about the cattle market.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: How's it going?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: May 15th already.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Stuff should be doing stuff by now.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: The green markets, they're doing stuff.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: They're definitely doing stuff.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Not always the right stuff.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Not always the right stuff.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: It depends on what side you are this week.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: For a lot of the cattle guys in the room, honestly, this was probably a nice little relief here recently, wasn't it?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those the green markets have kind of been uh a little bit concerning as of you know, it's been we do this every year, right, Mike.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: We um rallied pretty pretty good in May and into June on on grains, and we keep you know asking ourselves, well, is this the real thing or is it just seasonal, right?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's what keeps going through the end user's mind.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um this week was one of those weeks it kept going up.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh weren't really sure why.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of thought we were building a bunch of premium premium in before those Chinese meetings.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Turns out that's exactly what we were doing.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, that's a bit of a relief from this side.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny because each year it seems like something a little different.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like most years the commonality is you trade weather, whatever.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: But if you just close your eyes and say, like, yeah, we rallied this much into May, middle of May, we kind of sold off.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, yep, that looks what we've got.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: It started raining, crop went in fine.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: But we've been having some pretty expensive feeders get placed, right?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: That I mean it these these guys probably above five bucks corn starts to matter below five, then it's kind of an afterthought, isn't it?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I think so.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah, I don't think you know everybody adjusts their cost of gain a little bit.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, it's if if it's in the fours and and with some pretty wide basis that we've seen so far, I think that might be changing as you get into new crop and and certainly into a year from now type of thing.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, basis has been cooperative, so yeah, your cost of gain stays pretty low.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's talk about cattle futures specifically for a hot minute before we get to this week's breakdown of kind of what we saw happen.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about the activity we've seen this week so far, because it's been huge moves, it's been super choppy.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: What do you take from like Kate if you pull up like the August live cattle chart?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think you see when you view this chart?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: It it looks to me, and you you disagree if you would like, but I you know, I think we we have most of the trends and and moving averages and everything pretty well intact um as we leave the the week on a Friday here.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um the line's not on the chart, but you can throw a trend line in you know across some of those lows on this August chart, and and that held pretty well to this week on most months.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um today specifically, he's got the 20-day moving average, and we bounced off that pretty hard.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, 50 days have been holding quite well.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: We've never even gotten close to the 100 days, of course.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so in general, I would say, Mike, the trend is intact.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we haven't broken anything down through anything too significant to the downside.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, one thing I've noticed here over the last few trading sessions is so that's the fat cattle side, and I think that chart looks awesome.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think it looks like you just like the last few times we've seen a little bit of a correction, and then you open up a couple days above those lines, then you pop up.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: So, like that chart looks awesome.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you're at the top end of the range almost again already.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: Now look at feeder cattle, Kate.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: If you pulled up like August feeder cattle, it's a little bit different.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: It seems like we're two days behind almost, doesn't it?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like we we're at the bottom end of that trading range on that guy.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: We really are, and they had a disappointing week compared to what the live cattle have done.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I I don't know exactly why that is, Mike.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I know some of it was the corn rally in the beginning of the week, right?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: That that kind of made some sense, but now we've taken that corn, that corn's about as cheap as it's been in all month, right?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm not sure why they and they've got some energy to them today, so maybe, like you say, it'll just um kind of even itself out in the coming days here into next week.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, the old bogies on the block would used to say that feeders were the leaders, right?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, and I still kind of believe that comment is true.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that that part's a little maybe discouraging or frustrating one or the other here as we analyze the two different markets.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: This probably makes too much sense for it to be completely right, Jeff.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: But is the part of the rally that we've seen this week when we did find strength, like today, for example, cash has been really strong for the fat cattle market.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, is that part of the reason of the descriptions, discrepancy you think between the two?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: If we've got nearby super strong cash fundamentals, is that why maybe fat cattle are holding at a little bit better value than feeders?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're you're hitting the nail on the head there.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: So the fat cattle is all the news this week.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and record high cash, although we say that every every week.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I mean a six.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't like a 50 cent higher record.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: 100%, yeah.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's all the news, right?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Cash is big time.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all of the futures are having a hard time totally buying into it, right?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: You've got the uh June, where's June gonna be at?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, even the pack months, yeah, they don't they don't want to come along very bad at all.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, June wants to stay ten to twelve dollars under cash um this week at least.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh maybe that's all the same type of sediment, right?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's the concerning piece about the feeder cattle.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um if they're truly trading more um market tone or market undertones, if you will, um, and they're at the bottom of the range as fat cattle put in some of the highest, well, the highest cash by quite some margin.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's that's kind of the back and forth that we're observing this week, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like the futures don't really want to come along.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Fundamentals are kind of forcing them into it, type of a thing.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: Your fundamentals, I'd argue, are still very tight supply.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Supply has a tightest correlation with what price does, right?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: In the cattle markets, extremely tight, market ready supply.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then honestly, demand is still okay.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like equities, we hit 7,500 yesterday on the SP 500 record.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: I know we're off today, but consumers, just from even my own experiences this week, like there's still plenty of people spending money out and about on things we probably shouldn't be.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: So if we are tight on stuff, you know, we aren't showing it at any level quite yet.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe gas prices haven't hit everybody's you know credit card statement yet with that hike.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: The the only thing that we're getting a little bit concerned about is the choice beef market.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I know we talk about that a lot, so we won't spend a lot of time on it.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: But another week does go by, Mike, where seasonally you'd like to see that thing rallying and and it's not.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so you know we'll we'll keep watching it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're not completely alarmed yet at this point, because it's very high prices.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we're not seeing that May rally like we have uh in the past.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: Historically, you get to the end of the month, the futures start to get disappointed that you're not seeing that pop, right?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: That would be my suspicion.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um they'll they'll give it a little bit more time here.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh that will become the story at some point here as my as we get to the first part of June.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Very much so.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um can you talk me a little bit through the timeline of just we talked through the fundamental things that maybe happened this week, mainly on the fat cattle side.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about some of the other headlines that were massive uh implications on these futures markets this week.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting week as far as headlines go and and trying to decipher okay what really matters here and and what's actually gonna come to fruition.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, have been hard to put your thumb on.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, starting at the beginning of the week, you know Trump is uh, you know, it was rumored to have some folks from uh Brazil and and from JBS and such uh you know, at the White House was that last Thursday or Friday, whatever day the market was down pretty hard.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um turns out that was probably all true.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um so starting the week out, he's talking about you know eliminating any tariffs above the quotas.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is imported beef coming into the U.S.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be kind of specific on that because there's some stuff going back and forth this week on that as well.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: But um imported beef coming into the U.S.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: first was okay, we're gonna get rid of any of the tariffs above the people's quotas.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um that kind of changed later, you know, Tuesday.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was already to uh we're not gonna do that immediately, and then we're gonna reduce the tariffs above the quota.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I think that's where we're sitting today.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't believe we have any specifics on it yet, and as far as when it's gonna take place and what that reduction is gonna look like, but and that aligns really well with Trump's overall goal that he wants to make beef prices cheap.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, and it it the the only country that it really impacts into a great deal rate at the moment is Brazil, which is who we had at the White House.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, a lot of other countries might run in above their quota later in the year.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Brazil front loads that thing really heavy, um, usually hits hits their quota by beginning of February this year, uh, mid-February in the past couple years.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it matters to them.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: They are um, they've been a big uh importer in the past couple years.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a new thing since 2021.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and our prices started going up and and um they've found our marketplace to be pretty attractive, and it's still attractive to them today.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we haven't it's not like they hit their quota and they immediately stop shipping us meat.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the case.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: They actually haven't slowed down that much this year, so economically it still makes sense.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's just they're hit getting hit with a 20-something percent tariff on that meat.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if you take that tariff away or take it in half or whatever, um, certainly the motivation will be stronger to bring some more meat in.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Today, Brazil's responsible for about 20% of our imports this year.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there it's a little hard for us to completely understand.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, how much more um meat can they throw our direction?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think time will only tell as we've tried to sort through that data, but they they certainly have some beef.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: They got the channels open to bring it up here.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it would be somewhat impactful.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: So let's throw in the third country in our little love triangle here, which would be very relevant, which is China, because obviously Brazil does a lot of business with China as well.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: This week we had news, obviously, we had China negotiations going on between President Xi and Trump with him being there.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Now, after the meetings, it does look like President Xi is going to visit the U.S.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: in autumn coming up as well.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: What can you tell me about what we learned for beef specifically in the talks this week?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, basically, you know, China has shut down the um trade between U.S.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: beef going to China um when the whole tariff situation happened here a year ago.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, before that, we were starting to gain some pretty nice traction of shipping some meat over there.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not that it was huge volume, but you know, it was the trend was was there.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what's changed this week.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, China's saying we're back open for business.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so the U.S.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: uh packers processors will be uh eyeing that marketplace as far as an export uh situation goes.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now, let's come back and think about our supply situation when we talk about this.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're gonna we're about as short as we've ever been on supply.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in my opinion, we're as short as we will be in the you know coming months and coming years.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's certainly debatable.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I don't know how much meat will really want to flow that direction, but let's, you know, the the beef trade has been different than say like the pork trade going over there.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Pork that's been the lower end cut, that's been a really nice value add to some of the variety meats, even Mike.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um beef has been a different trend.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's been the higher end um corn fed type of choice beef that that marketplace uh has been demanding.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it'll be interesting to see.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: They it it might, as crazy as this is going to sound, it they might buy some U.S.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: beef um and we might export a little bit more beef to China, um, and it'll be the higher end stuff if we do.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the rumor was that China wanted beef from the US, but that rumor also included, well, Trump wants cheap beef and he's not gonna give it to him.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it and now they're fine.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm selfish with my stakes.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: You can keep all of them here in the U.S.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: We'll try to push this price down a little bit.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: We'll give them the tongues and the heads.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: You might have to eat one less because a couple Chinese folks will get it instead, Mike.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Very much so.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll see.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: We'll give them the tongues and the heads and stuff.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'll take the stakes all day long.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: But uh I'm with you there.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll see.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: This was gonna happen in China, they delayed it, or what what's the updated situation on this part of the discussion between the US and China?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: That that part I think's happening.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're just not exactly sure on timing.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Makes sense.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: That seems like a very generic theme here uh as of lately with this.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, okay.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Other final thoughts, any takeaways from the major headlines that we had this week?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think that wraps it up on the on the cattle stuff for today, Mike.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, please click the link in the description below to get our DMC, our daily market commentary, along with other marketing info as well that you'll find marketing uh relevant.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: And uh please visit our website at professionaleggmarketing.com.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for watching.