Trump’s hunger for Argentine beef helps Minerva

Minerva has a slaughter capacity of 5,978 cattle head per day in Argentina, according to data from the company’s most recent financial statement. “It’s not official yet, but [if the U.S. goes ahead with the plan] it greatly favors Minerva, which is the largest beef exporter from Argentina among all industries in the country,” said a source familiar with the matter. Sources and analysts told Valor that, if Mr. Trump moves forward with the idea, it would also have a positive indirect effect on another Brazilian company’s operations in Argentina, MBRF.

Mr. Trump argues that importing Argentine beef could be a way out to reduce prices of the product in the U.S., but this effect would actually be quite limited. In September, Argentina exported 71,300 tonnes of beef, of which 3,900 tonnes went to the U.S. market, the Argentine Meat Exporters Consortium (ABC) reported this week.

For comparison, even with the 50% surcharge that went into effect in August, Brazil is still exporting to the U.S. nearly 10,000 tonnes of the product per month, according to the Brazilian Association of Meat Exporting Industries (ABIEC). In July, the last month before the surcharge, the volume was 18,200 tonnes.

“Argentina is not large enough to cause a significant impact on beef prices [in the U.S.],” said Caleb Hurst, a protein analyst at S&P Global Commodity Insights, in a report. According to Mr. Hurst, to make a difference in prices in the U.S. domestic market, the amount of imported beef would have to be at least 200,000 tonnes. Argentina sells to the U.S. less than 2% of that.

The U.S. cattle herd, at about 80 million head, is now the smallest in the last 75 years, and the tight supply has driven prices in the country to record levels. The 50% surcharge on Brazilian products made Brazilian beef exports to the U.S. in large volumes unfeasible, which accentuated the tight supply situation—and rising prices.

A source said that an increase in U.S. demand would have the potential to even reduce the negative impact of 5% on revenue that Minerva expected when Mr. Trump announced the tariff hike. The company ships beef to the U.S. via Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

Leonardo Alencar, head of agribusiness, food and beverages at XP, noted that the Argentine industry has some very different aspects from the Brazilian one. One is fragmentation; several smaller meatpackers are exporters. With this, he says, Minerva is indeed the largest in the country “and should be, yes, the biggest beneficiary of a potential increase in U.S. demand for Argentine beef.”

The specialist notes that this increase in demand, by itself, would not cause a transformation in Argentine shipments because the country is already authorized to sell to the U.S. and does not have the same available volume that Brazil would have to export. However, Mr. Trump’s stance is another positive factor for meatpackers operating in the neighboring country. Recently, Argentine President Javier Milei eliminated export tariffs on various agricultural products, including meats.