00:00Australia to lift import ban on US beef after Trump tariffs tip Australia will lift restrictions
00:05on the import of beef from the US, a trade barrier which had angered the Trump administration.
00:10American beef has effectively been banned from the country, which has some of the strictest
00:14biosecurity laws in the world. Since 2003, after an outbreak of mad cow disease, the White House
00:21had cited the restrictions when explaining tariffs imposed on Australia in April,
00:26and US authorities reacted to the news by saying the major trade breakthrough would make
00:30agriculture great. Again, the Australian government has denied that the timing of the decision was
00:35related to the trade tiff. Saying a decade-long department review found the US had improved
00:40beef safety measures, Canberra technically lifted the ban on US beef in 2019, but cattle from Mexico
00:47and Canada remained on the blacklist, and the integration of their supply chains meant this
00:52essentially barred beef from the states too. However, the US has recently introduced better
00:57cattle tracing protocols, allowing authorities to track where they were raised and respond
01:01more effectively in the event of a disease outbreak.In a statement, US Agriculture Secretary
01:06Brooke Rollins said, the restrictions were absurd and stressed the safety of her country's beef
01:11products. Gone are the days of putting American farmers on the sidelines. Australia's Agriculture
01:17Minister Julie Collins said the department had undertaken a rigorous science and risk-based
01:22assessment and was now satisfied that the US is managing any biosecurity threats. This decision has
01:27been purely based on science. She said in a statement, the Albanese Labour government will never compromise
01:33on biosecurity. But the opposition has suggested the government may have done just that. It looks as
01:39though the ban has been traded away to appease Donald Trump. And that's what we don't want.
01:43Nationals leader David Littleproud told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC,
01:48I want to see the science.
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