New Zealand lamb producers could be on the hook for further tariffs after a US trade panel decided to investigate if lamb meat imports harm American farmers.
New Zealand officials are heading to Washington DC to make their case to the US International Trade Commission's remedies hearing on December 1, which will debate possible measures.
From there, a report will be presented to President Donald Trump, who is expected to make the final call early next year.
New Zealand beef and lamb exports to the US are currently $660 million a year, and face a tariff of 13.2%.
Beef and Lamb chair Kate Acland told RNZ Morning Report US commissioners were evenly split on whether New Zealand product was hurting local producers.
Acland said without New Zealand and Australian imports, the average US consumer would not even get to eat lamb.
"It won't be on plates, it won't be a relevant protein. And so I guess our argument is there is the opportunity to grow this market for everybody."
Americans ate much less lamb than beef, Acland said, and New Zealand exports had only risen in line with the overall market.
"We send 9 million lambs worth of racks into the US. [The US] only produces 2 million lambs that they cut up for racks. So if they don't have their imported product, they just won't have it on their menus."
She said there was a growing trend towards protectionism, but New Zealand had a "strong case".
"Everyone's quite nervous about this. We have really good diversified market access. We have a lot of options to send our product, but US is a high-value, important market."
Trade Minister Todd McClay said his team was taking the matter "very seriously".
"We're very disappointed that they've gone there because New Zealand lamb is not causing harm in that market. But as we've seen since President Trump was elected, it's a little bit of a roller coaster. We just have to take it seriously and make our case."
That case would be that New Zealand and Australian exports to the US are growing the overall market for lamb, not cutting into local production.
"If you go into some of their better restaurants or the hotels, you'll see lamb on the menu. You didn't used to see that. And often it is now New Zealand lamb. It's at a premium.
"And so our case will be our exports - compared to your consumption - haven't been going up, and it's not overly material. Actually, we get a very high price there, so we're not pushing the price down. We are dragging it up by growing that demand.
"And that actually the US now consumes more lamb than they can produce, and there's enough room for everybody. So we'll be making that case very, very clearly."
New Zealand would also offer US growers some tips on how to "produce more and make more money", he said.
A final decision was not expected until March 2027.
"It's very hard to predict anything that's happening in trade at the moment… so we've prepared our case already with the sector, with Beef and Lamb and the Meat Industry Association. They've all been up on lobbying efforts, as I've had my officials and our embassy there. So the officials will be going up and taking this very seriously on 1 December."
McClay said ultimately it was up to Trump.
"We need to prepare ourselves that he just says, 'Well, you know what, I'm backing Americans, so there's a great big fat tariff coming on everybody.' We saw him do that with beef, and of course he had to change because they don't produce enough beef, prices are going up."
- RNZ
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