Agent Orange and his knuckleheads shooting America in the foot, again. Desperately trying to get eggs from countries they have annoyed.
What happens when you spend months antagonising countries by imposing tariffs on them along with threatening to invade? They become less likely to lend a hand. Add to that ridiculing them or having senior members of the administration ‘popping in’ for a visit resulting in heightened concern about US intentions. All measures that have resulted in increased animosity towards the US.
With a chronic shortage of eggs in the USA as a result of the Avian Flu epidemic, the US.Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been approaching lots of countries in order to import eggs. The list of countries approached include Denmark, Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden. All countries that have been on the receiving end of antagonistic rhetoric either directly or by being in the EU.
All the countries have replied that they don’t have any spare eggs. In desperation the USDA also tried South Korea and Turkiye. Obviously the logistics of transporting fresh eggs over that distance would be an expensive challenge. These will be supplied as processed egg products for food manufacturers.
The only nearby country that Trump has not annoyed yet is Brazil. Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins has said that hundreds of millions of eggs will be coming in to the USA. While the imported eggs are starting to bring down the price for consumers, there has been adjustments to the import process and presumably import charges to reduce the costs of the imported eggs. Bottom line is essentially the imported eggs are subsidised.
Of course transporting eggs from Brazil is more expensive than from Canada. If only Trump had not loudly commented that the US did not need anything from Canada.
The USDA is to spend $1 billion on propping up the egg industry, trying to address the Avian Flu epidemic and help the egg industry recover. The cost of eggs is coming down with the help of government subsidies, but would have been cheaper to tackle if Trump had not annoyed the countries that could have helped.