Santa Teresa reopens to Mexican cattle, but ground beef at $6.92 a pound won't fall soon

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is reopening the livestock port at Santa Teresa, New Mexico, to Mexican cattle, more than a year after imports were blocked to keep out the New World screwworm. Government and industry officials told Reuters the move will add to U.S. cattle supplies but will not bring down record beef prices any time soon.

Santa Teresa matters because of its size. It handled about 43% of U.S. cattle imports from Mexico over the last five years, according to USDA figures cited by Reuters. A smaller port at Douglas, Arizona, reopened a month ago, and about 6,500 cattle have crossed there since. USDA said it will next consider reopening Columbus, New Mexico.

Why the reopening won't show up at the meat counter

The headline sounds like relief for beef buyers. The numbers say otherwise, for three reasons.

• The flow is capped. New Mexico Agriculture Secretary Jeff Witte said 750 to 1,600 cattle a day are expected to enter under USDA's treatment rules, down from a peak of about 3,000. That is 25% to 53% of the old peak. Even at the top of the range, a month of crossings is about 48,000 head.
• These are not ready-to-slaughter animals. Experts told Reuters it takes about five to eight months to raise imported Mexican cattle to slaughter weight. Cattle crossing from Sept. 25 would reach packers roughly between late February and late May 2027.
• The U.S. herd is small. The country had 86.2 million cattle in January, a 75-year low, after years of drought pushed ranchers to keep fewer animals.

Witte summed up the effect himself: "The percentage impact of that is not that great." He said the imports could help feedlots running below capacity, which is a cost story for feeders before it is a price story for shoppers.

What beef has already cost

Reuters said the import ban helped push ground beef to a record near $7 a pound. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' average price series puts 100% ground beef at $6.923 a pound in August 2026, up from $6.318 a year earlier. That is 60.5 cents a pound more, a rise of 9.6%.

That series is a retail price, and restaurants buy wholesale, often on contract, so their own costs will differ. It is still a useful gauge of the direction. Take a burger restaurant using 150 pounds of ground beef a week. If its cost rose by the same 60.5 cents a pound, that is about $91 more a week, or roughly $4,700 over a year, from one line item. A place running 400 pounds a week would be looking at about $12,600 a year.

Who it hits

605,380 independent restaurants are listed on CheckThisBiz, a directory of 7,704,724 independent US businesses, including 79,108 in CA, 54,058 in TX, 51,387 in NY. Chains and franchises are excluded from that count, so these are the owner-operated businesses that actually apply for funding.

For burger shops, taquerias, diners and barbecue joints, beef is often the biggest single food cost, and the reopening does not change the budget for this fall or the holiday season. The realistic window for any easing from Mexican imports is the second quarter of 2027, and only if the screwworm stays contained. There are two active U.S. cases, including a horse in New Mexico about 160 miles from Santa Teresa, and officials are still trying to work out how it was infested. Another closure would reset the clock.

For owners setting menus now, that argues for pricing on today's beef cost rather than on a hoped-for drop. Our restaurant operating playbook covers menu costing and supplier terms.

Sources: Reuters, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, USDA figures as reported by Reuters, CheckThisBiz. The restaurant cost examples are illustrations using the BLS retail price change, not wholesale quotes. This is market information, not investment advice.