Australian beef producers said they were “extremely disappointed” after China announced a 55% tariff on imports that exceed quota levels in a move to protect a domestic cattle industry slowly emerging from oversupply.
China’s commerce ministry said on Wednesday the total import quota for 2026 for Australia and other countries such as Brazil and the US covered under its new “safeguard measures” is 2.7m metric tons, roughly in line with the record 2.87m tons it imported overall in 2024.
The new annual quota levels are set below import levels for the first 11 months of 2025 for Australia as well as its top supplier, Brazil.
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“The increase in the amount of imported beef has seriously damaged China’s domestic industry,” the ministry said in announcing the measure after an investigation launched last December.
The measure takes effect on 1 January for three years, with the total quota increasing annually.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said Australia was communicating with China over the move, but downplayed the potential impact on the local beef industry.
“This is something that wasn’t Australia being singled out … this is a general position that China has put,” Albanese said on Thursday.
“We are advocating, as we always do, for Australian industry.
“Australian beef is, in my view, proudly, as the Australian prime minister, the best in the world. We compete in the world very well, and our products are in great demand right around the world. We expect that will continue to be so. The Australian beef industry has never been stronger than it is today.”
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, described the tariff as “devastating” while the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, said Albanese should leverage his relationship with China’s president, Xi Jinping, to secure a carve out.
But beef producers reacted angrily to the news, with the Australian Meat Industry Council (AMIC) describing the measures as extremely disappointing”.
The tariffs were neither fair not appropriate, the AMIC chief executive, Tim Ryan, said, and were not reflective of the “long-standing, mutually beneficial trade relationship Australia has with China”.
“This decision appears to reward other countries who have surged the volume of beef exported to the Chinese market in recent years,” Ryan said.
“This decision will have a severe impact on trade flows to China over the duration of the measures’ enforcement, disrupt the longstanding relationships fostered under the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and restrict the ability for Chinese consumers to access safe and reliable Australian beef.”
Beef imports to China fell 0.3% in the first 11 months of this year to 2.59 million tons. Chinese beef imports will decline in 2026 as a result of the measures, said Hongzhi Xu, senior analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultants.
“China’s beef-cattle farming is not competitive compared with countries such as Brazil and Argentina,” Xu said. “This cannot be reversed in the short term through technological advancements or institutional reforms.”
In 2024, China imported 1.34 million tons of beef from Brazil, 594,567 tons from Argentina, 243,662 tons from Uruguay, 216,050 tons from Australia, 150,514 tons from New Zealand and 138,112 tons from the U.S.
In the first 11 months of this year, Brazil shipped 1.33 million tons of beef to China, according to Chinese customs data, well above the quota levels set under Beijing’s new measures.
Also this year, Australian shipments to China have surged, gaining share at the expense of US beef after Beijing in March allowed permits to expire at hundreds of American meat plants and as Donald Trump unleashed a tit-for-tat tariff war.
Responding to Beijing’s announcement, Mark Thomas, the chair of the Western Beef Association in Australia, said: “There’s plenty of other countries that will take our product.”
