Mexican ag minister to talk border reopening next week

Reuters news service reported Oct. 23, 2025, that the ag minister for Mexico – the counterpart to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary – will travel to the U.S. capital city next week to discuss the reopening of the border to cattle, said President Claudia Scheinbaum.

The Mexican Agricultural Minister Julio Berdegue will meet with the USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, said the Reuters story.

The border has been closed to horses, cattle and bison since May due to the movement of the New World Screwworm northward through the Darien Gap and into Mexico. The furthest north report of a NWS was just 70 miles south of the U.S. border.

USDA is building a sterile fly facility in Texas to produce sterile male flies as a tool to reduce populations of the flesh-eating parasite.

In light of President Trump’s announced plan to lower quotas on Argentinian beef which is expected to allow for more Argentinian beef imports, the cattle industry is on edge. The President’s announced beef import plan is intended to reduce beef prices. But most industry spokesmen are skeptical that beef prices will drop significantly in part because the amount of beef is relatively small considering that the U.S. currently imports over 15 percent of the beef consumed here, and in part because the four major packers control 85 percent of the beef processing, giving them the ability to influence beef pricing.

USDA Secretary Rollins has said “we must se additional progress in combatting NWS in Veracruz and other nearby Mexican states in order to reopen livestock ports along the southern border.”