US beef off the menu as the trade war hits Beijing's American-style restaurants

Ella Cao - Reuters - 21/04
At Home Plate BBQ, an American-style restaurant in Beijing, staff are reprinting menus. The U.S.-China trade war means American beef - once the star ingredient - will soon be off the table.
  • At risk: US beef exports to China worth $125 million a month
  • Home Plate BBQ switching to Australian beef
  • Australian beef 'just as good', restaurant operator says
BEIJING, April 21 (Reuters) - At Home Plate BBQ, an American-style restaurant in Beijing, staff are reprinting menus. The U.S.-China trade war means American beef - once the star ingredient - will soon be off the table.
Home Plate's beef, previously sourced entirely from the U.S., is increasingly Australian. The restaurant uses about 7 to 8 tonnes of brisket each month, and when the U.S. beef in the freezers is used up in a few weeks, the southern-style BBQ restaurant will only serve meat from Australia.

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U.S. beef is one of thousands of casualties in the trade war between the world's largest trading partners. Even before the battle began, American beef was expensive. Beijing's 125% retaliatory tariffs, on top of the existing 22%, made it unaffordable.
"It's essentially just made it very hard for us to continue using U.S. beef," said Home Plate's operations director, Charles de Pellette.
While the $125 million a month in U.S. beef exports to China is a sliver o...
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