American beef is headed back to China after a 14-year ban.
President Donald Trump, who during his campaign touted cutting the United States' trade deficit with China and other countries, touted the report on Twitter.
China banned the import of American beef products in 2003 over fears of mad cow disease, but The Gazette newspaper in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, reported Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad will be serving Nebraska prime rib Friday night to Chinese officials.
It's not the Ohio beef that Branstad, the state's former governor, had hoped to serve, but the Nebraska beef gets one step closer.
"This is a big deal. It's definitely very positive news," Lee Schulz, a livestock economist at Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, told the paper.
Still, Schulz said, American beef isn't likely to resume its spot on the table of the 1.4 billion Chinese in the near future. The U.S. beef market in China is still "in its infancy," he said.
Australia and Uruguay quickly filled the void left by the United States in 2003 and aren't anxious to cede the market back.
China is expected to become the world's largest beef market, and U.S. beef producers expect to make an impact there, American Farm Bureau Federation economist Katelyn McCullock told the paper. The products being shipped to China before 2003 were not "muscle cuts" or steak as the Chinese now prefer, but "offal," including tongues, kidneys and liver.
"There are a lot of people there … and a rising middle class who can add beef to their diet," Chris Freland of the Iowa Beef Industry Council said.
Before the ban, the United States provided 80 percent of China's $70 million worth of imported beef annually. Beef imports were at 601,000 tons in 2016 and expected to grow drastically in the coming years, and American beef is considered "a very credible brand" worldwide, Schulz said.
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