this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
198 points (98.5% liked)

News

37365 readers
1908 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Summary

The Trump administration's effort to import eggs to offset losses from bird flu is struggling due to logistical challenges and global supply constraints.

Many countries, including Turkey, are prioritizing domestic supply and imposing export taxes.

Experts warn that replacing U.S. egg production with imports is unrealistic, as the industry operates on a local scale.

To meet demand, the U.S. would need 70 to 100 million eggs in the next month, a goal analysts say is nearly impossible to achieve quickly.

all 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 75 points 1 year ago

Maybe we could ask Canada for eggs… oh wait… how about Mexico…. Hm. Gee. It’s almost like pissing off our trade partners for self-aggrandizement and market manipulation was a bad idea…

[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 65 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's almost like isolationism was a bad idea or something.

I don't need anyone else!

...

Why isn't anyone helping me?!

[–] athairmor@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Importing fresh eggs is probably a non-starter, anyway. Look around your country at the price of eggs, it varies a lot even at large scales. Eggs don’t ship that well.

But throwing money at basic science research could, actually, solve the problem. Eradicate bird flu and the prices will drop. But you’d need a pro-science administration to do that.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Many countries, including Turkey, are prioritizing domestic supply and imposing export taxes.

I am not at all sure that we can import from Turkey.

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/inspection/import-export/import-guidance/sourcing-egg-products-and-shell-eggs-foreign-countries

Sourcing Egg Products and Shell Eggs From Foreign Countries

"Shell Eggs" is the term for whole, unbroken eggs in trade parlance.

Because of the expected shortage of egg products in the United States because of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in egg laying hens, companies that use egg products are asking about foreign sources of eggs and egg products.

To be eligible to export egg products to the United States, countries must have an egg products inspection system that is equivalent to FSIS’s inspection system. To determine whether a country maintains an equivalent inspection system, FSIS conducts a thorough document review of that country’s relevant laws, regulations, and other official publications, and one or more on-site audits of the country’s relevant inspection system. If FSIS tentatively concludes that the system is equivalent based on that review, FSIS proposes to list the country in the egg products inspection regulations as eligible to export egg products to the United States. FSIS then evaluates any comments received in response to the proposal and determines whether to develop the final rule. If, after evaluating comments and any other available data, FSIS concludes that the country’s system is equivalent, FSIS publishes a final rule listing the country in the regulations as eligible to export egg products to the U.S.

So, basically, there's a long review process.

There are two countries authorized to export egg products to the United States: Canada and the Netherlands.

And the USDA needs to conduct the review.

So we are in a situation where Trump has managed to, in the matter of a few weeks, do his utmost to:

  • Antagonize Canada.

  • Antagonize the Netherlands.

  • Lay off thousands of workers from the agency that has to conduct this extensive legal review to authorize any other countries, a bunch of whom were just judicially reinstated for the time being.

While Trump isn't responsible for creating the pandemic that created the egg shortage, and that's really the elephant in the room here, I can't really imagine a worse possible way that he could be responding to it.

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

This is Trump, the same guy who thought that the best way to make COVID numbers go down is to stop recording COVID cases. He has the most rudimentary grasp on cause and effect that his solution to not enough eggs is to remove all safeguards and import whatever another country thinks qualifies as eggs. And that's ignoring eggs with bird flu. It's fully within his scope of inept decisions to enable DOGE to gut the FDA and expedite foreign eggs.

It isn't impossible to get the eggs. It's impossible to get the eggs that we expect.

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago

I mean, I fully expect him to try to throw out the regulations that require all of that checking to import eggs.

It would be nice if he got rid of the regulations requiring eggs to be washed, like pretty much every other developed country.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

It's Denmark that Trump has directly antagonized with all the Greenland stuff, not the Netherlands.

That said, the Netherlands is so ride or die for Canada that I wouldn't be surprised if they told the US to get fucked out of spite.

[–] andallthat@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Dear federal employee, this is Elon again. I haven't seen a response to my last email. Are you mad at me?

This week I'd like you to provide evidence that you laid an egg for your Country. Failure to comply will result in me thinking that maybe you don't love me. Can you do just this one little thing for me? Come on, one little egg.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

OH MY GOD WITH THE FUCKING EGGS ALREADY...

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 year ago

Maybe Marx was wrong, maybe eggs are the opiate of the masses and maybe Trump truly bungling this fucking clown show will spur action. Maybe not... but I'd hope so.

[–] axh@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Sell eggs to US? Who would do such a terrible thing to them?!? Trump treats every country that sells more stuff to the US as an aggressor, so why would anyone want to sell them anything? (And once eggs are no longer needed, trump would put tariffs to ruin all business that helped him out)

[–] sepi@piefed.social 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

elon is gonna hire a bunch of h1b's to lay eggs

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

He can ask rfk jr, parasites lays thousands of eggs a day per parasite

[–] DancingBear@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

And considering about a billion other people in the world have the same worm that rfk had, that’s a lot of eggs

[–] hoi_polloi@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

No, why would you trade with other countries and widen the trade deficit? Apparently that's a big deal.