Washington DC [US], March 23: The Trump administration is planning to import eggs from Turkey and South Korea and is in talks with other countries in hopes of easing all-time high prices for the American consumer, officials confirmed.
"We are talking in the hundreds of millions of eggs for the short term," Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters at the White House.
It follows the administration's announcement of a $1bn (£792m) plan to combat a raging bird flu epidemic that has forced US farmers to cull tens of millions of chickens.
Despite President Trump's campaign promise to reduce prices, the cost of eggs has surged more than 65% over the past year, and it is projected to rise by 41% in 2025.
Rollins said her department was also in talks with other countries to secure new supplies, but did not specify which regions.
"When our chicken populations are repopulated and we've got a full egg laying industry going again, hopefully in a couple of months, we then shift back to our internal egg layers and moving those eggs out onto the shelf, " she said.
Polish and Lithuanian poultry associations said on Friday they had also been approached by US embassies regarding possible egg exports, the AFP reported.
"Back in February, the American embassy in Warsaw asked our organisation whether Poland would be interested in exporting eggs to the US market," Katarzyna Gawronska, director of the National Chamber of Poultry and Feed Producers, told the news agency.
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In February, the US Department of Agriculture unveiled a $1bn, five-point plan to tackle the price of eggs, with a budget of $500m for biosecurity measures, roughly $100m for vaccine research and development, and $400m for farmer financial relief programs.
The Trump administration said it will provide commercial egg farms with best practices and consulting services for free, and pay up to 75% of the costs to address vulnerabilities to help prevent the spread of bird flu.
"Our plan was to invest a significant amount of money to do audits across the country to have USDA help these egg laying companies to secure their barns," Rollins said. ".and since we began doing that most recently, we've seen a significant decline in the bird flu."
Though the avian flu, or H5N1, has circulated among American poultry flocks for years, an outbreak starting in 2022 has wreaked havoc on farms, killing more than 156 million birds and sending egg prices skyrocketing.
Egg prices became a rallying point for Trump in last year's presidential run as he sought to capitalise on voters' frustrations with the rising cost of essential items.
During his address to the US Congress earlier this month, he blamed the soaring egg prices on his predecessor Joe Biden.
"Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control - and we are working hard to get it back down," he added.
Egg prices rose as the Biden administration directed millions of egg-laying birds to be culled last year amid a bird flu outbreak, though prices have continued rising during the early stages of Trump's second presidency.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation
