Tariffs on Lamb and Wool Take Center Stage on ASI Podcast
May 20, 2025
The economic impact of tariffs can be difficult and complex to understand, so David Anderson, Ph.D., of Texas A&M University joins the American Sheep Industry Association’s Research Update podcast this month to discuss tariffs as they apply to both lamb and wool.
“A tariff is simply a tax. We’ve done this forever. Product comes in, it’s subject to a tariff and the importer has to pay that bill. If the product is more expensive to bring into the U.S., then it’s going to see a higher price,” said Anderson, a livestock economist who also writes a market report column for the Sheep Industry News. “In that regard, we can think of it as yeah the importer writes the check, but consumers pay that bill through a higher price.”
Currently, imported lamb from Australia and New Zealand carries a 10-percent tariff. While the United States imports a large percentage of the lamb consumed domestically, it exports a large portion of the American wool clip. And traditionally, most of that exported wool has ended up in China, which was hit with the largest tariffs of any country before a 90-day pause on some tariffs was announced this week.
Anderson tries to make sense of it all, admitting that the wool tariffs are a more complicated situation for American wool growers.
Click Here to listen to the full podcast.
Source: ASI
