In a year already marked by economic uncertainty and agricultural upheaval, the U.S. beef industry is facing a crisis that stretches from the cattle ranches of Mexico to the processing plants of Nebraska and Texas. A perfect storm of supply shocks, biosecurity fears, and shifting trade policies has disrupted the flow of cattle and beef across North America, sending ripples through local economies and dinner tables alike.
The trouble began in November 2024, when a cow in southern Mexico tested positive for the New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite notorious for burrowing into the flesh of warm-blooded animals and causing festering wounds and, in some cases, fatal weight loss. According to the Washington Post, the discovery set off alarms on both sides of the border. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), still haunted by memories of previous screwworm outbreaks, responded swiftly: imports of Mexican cattle, which usually number around 1.2 million head each year, plummeted to just 230,000. The U.S. initiated a cattle import ban on Mexican animals in November 2024, and while the ban has been lifted and reinstated periodically, the uncertainty has been devastating for Mexican ranchers and American processors alike.
The screwworm saga is particularly troubling given its history. The parasite had been eliminated from the U.S. in 1966 and from Mexico in 1991, thanks to a landmark collaboration that used sterile female flies to collapse the screwworm population. But in 2023, the pest re-emerged in North America after crossing the Darien Gap in Panama, as reported by the American Society for Microbiology. Now, U.S. and Mexican officials are scrambling to repeat their earlier success, but eradicating a pest as persistent as the screwworm is no overnight task. The USDA and Mexico have announced plans to deploy sterile flies again, but the process will take months, if not years.
In the meantime, the consequences are being felt most acutely in border communities and ranching towns. Jorge Maldonado, the mayor of Nogales, Arizona, operates a small cattle ranch in Mexico and told the Washington Post that he would have made an extra $10,000 if he’d been able to sell a recent batch of animals to U.S. buyers. The downturn in cattle trade has also hit local businesses: Nogales has collected up to 15 percent less in bed taxes due to a lack of visitors who typically stay overnight during cattle negotiations. Maldonado called the screwworm reemergence a “catastrophe” for businesses tied to the cattle industry.
Others, like Juan Manuel Fleischer, who helps sort cattle and guide them from small Mexican ranches to U.S. cattle yards, are feeling the sting as well. Learning that the U.S. was closing its doors to Mexican cattle left Fleischer reeling. “I said, ‘Oh, my god, it’s going to kill us. This will break us,'” he told the Washington Post.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has made reopening the border for Mexican cattle a “top priority,” pressing the U.S. to reconsider its stance. However, the response from Washington has been firm. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, in a September 2025 statement, underscored the administration’s position: “Protecting the United States from NWS is non-negotiable and a top priority of the Trump Administration. This is a national security priority. We have given Mexico every opportunity and every resource necessary to counter NWS since announcing the NWS Bold Plan in June 2025. Nevertheless, American ranchers and families should know that we will not rely on Mexico to defend our industry, our food supply, or our way of life.”
USDA officials have told Maldonado that the border will remain closed at least until the end of 2025. On its website, the USDA states, “We are supporting robust response activities in Mexico and Central America to push the pest back, and we have teams in place along the U.S. border to bolster our defenses and stay ahead of it. If screwworm crosses into the United States, we are ready to act quickly and aggressively to eliminate it.” Requests for further comment from the USDA have not been answered, according to The Independent.
As if the screwworm crisis weren’t enough, the U.S. beef industry is also grappling with a historic shortage of cattle. Late last month, Tyson Foods announced it would close its major beef plant in Lexington, Nebraska, in January 2026, citing the lowest U.S. cattle supplies in nearly 75 years. The plant, which employs 3,200 workers and processes about 5,000 cattle per day—roughly 5 percent of total U.S. slaughtering—had already been operating below capacity. Tyson will also reduce operations at its Amarillo, Texas, beef plant to a single full-capacity shift, affecting about 1,700 workers, Reuters reported.
“Tyson Foods recognizes the impact these decisions have on team members and the communities where we operate,” the company said in a statement. The changes are expected to take effect around January 20, with production ramping up at other facilities to meet customer demand.
Beef prices have set records in 2025, driven by low supplies and strong demand. Ranchers, battered by years of drought that scorched pastureland and drove up feeding costs, slashed their herds. Now, some are slowly starting to rebuild, but raising cattle to market weight is a two-year process at minimum. For Tyson, the supply crunch has been brutal: the company’s beef business suffered adjusted losses of $426 million in the 12 months ending September 27, 2025, and $291 million the year before. Tyson projects losses of $400 to $600 million in fiscal year 2026.
Industry observers were caught off guard by the timing of the closure. “We all expected a plant to be closed at some point in 2026,” said Rich Nelson, chief strategist for Allendale. “I’m a little surprised they’re doing it preemptively.” Matt Wiegand, a commodity broker for FuturesOne in Nebraska, noted that the closure would be a shock to Lexington, a city of about 10,000 residents, and would hurt local feedyards that fatten cattle. U.S. Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska echoed those concerns: “Tyson’s announcement will have a devastating impact. It’s no secret that just a few years ago, packers like Tyson were making windfall profits while the rest of the industry was continuously in the red.”
Meanwhile, the political response has been swift and, at times, contentious. President Donald Trump, aiming to bring down beef prices, has sought to boost imports from countries like Argentina and, in late November 2025, removed 40 percent tariffs that had been imposed earlier in the year on Brazilian food products. The move was designed to ease the flow of beef used in hamburger meat into the U.S. market, but it has angered some American ranchers, who see it as undercutting domestic producers at a vulnerable moment. Trump has also accused meat-packing companies of manipulating beef prices and has ordered the Justice Department to investigate possible collusion.
As 2025 draws to a close, the beef industry finds itself at a crossroads. From the fields of Mexico to the plants of Nebraska, economic livelihoods and food security are being tested by forces both biological and economic. The road to recovery will require not just scientific ingenuity and policy coordination, but also a willingness to adapt to a new—and uncertain—reality.