CHICAGO — With the US meat industry on edge only days ago about losing crucial access to the Chinese market, pork producers breathed a sigh of relief when over 300 pork harvesting and cold storage facilities received registration renewals from China.

The pork plants’ eligibility to export to China either expired late February or were set to expire March 16 with little indication if China would reinstate the facilities. On March 17, however, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) announced all the pork plants seeking renewal were approved by China for another five years.

“US pork producers now have maintained access and increased certainty to export their products to the 1.4-billion-person Chinese market,” said Bryan Humphreys, chief executive officer of NPPC. “NPPC’s leadership and focus on market access for US pork is paying off, and we’re not stopping here.” 

As the world’s largest meat market, China remains an important destination for US pork products, especially for offals, which return more value in China than in other markets. In 2024, over 367,000 tonnes of US pork were exported to China, worth more than $1.1 billion. Approximately 55% of pork variety meat exports, including offals, were shipped to China.

Over the past few months, the US Department of Agriculture and the US Trade Representative have worked with China’s General Administration of Customs to renew the registration of US pork and beef facilities that were set to expire or had recently expired.

While pork producers are celebrating a win, the US Meat Export Federation (USMEF) pointed out that US beef facilities have yet to be notified of registration renewals for licenses that expired March 16.

“We are hoping for similar news soon on the beef side, but for now the 390 US beef facilities that expired on March 16 have not yet been renewed,” said Joe Schuele, a spokesperson for USMEF. “For the time being, we have advised exporters that beef produced prior to March 16 should clear customs, provided that importers had secured import quarantine permits prior to March 16.”

USMEF estimated that the beef industry could experience a $4.13 billion full-year impact if access to China is lost.

“[The estimate] not only takes into consideration the loss of direct exports to China, but also the impact of the improved prices US beef cuts command in Japan, Korea and Taiwan when exporters also have access to China and Chinese buyers are active in the market,” Schuele explained.

The registrations in question were first issued in 2020, when hundreds of US meat plants were granted access to China in a “Phase 1” trade deal made with President Donald Trump, but they are now facing their five-year expiration.

A report from Reuters noted that of the nearly 1,000 beef, pork and poultry processing plants, some were owned by Tyson Foods and Cargill, based on information from the USDA and Chinese customs data.