Uruguay has signaled it is willing to allow Brazil to use part of its unused beef export quota for China, a move that could provide Brazilian meatpackers with additional access to their biggest overseas market.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the issue was discussed with Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi during a meeting in New York on Monday.
“We discussed issues on the bilateral agenda, particularly infrastructure and agricultural trade,” Lula said in a social media post. “I thanked him for the authorization granted to Brazil to use the surplus from Uruguay’s beef export quota to China.”
Uruguay has an annual quota of 331,000 metric tons of beef shipments to China that are exempt from an additional tariff. About 80,000 tons of that volume could potentially be made available to Brazil, reflecting capacity Uruguay is not expected to use.
That volume would amount to less than one month of Brazilian beef exports to China. Brazil shipped an average of 111,000 tons a month to China in the first eight months of 2026, according to data from Abiec, the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association. The monthly average was 140,000 tons in 2025.
Exporters see the potential arrangement as more significant for shipments next year.
“For 2027, the measure could represent an important alternative, especially given Brazil’s quota of 1.128 million tons and the risk that it could be exhausted in the first months of the year if the current sales pace continues,” Abiec said in a statement.
The agreement between Brazil and Uruguay does not by itself guarantee that the additional volume will become available to Brazilian exporters. China would have to approve any reallocation of quota between supplying countries, and Beijing’s position remains unclear.
Details of any concession Brazil may have offered Uruguay also have not been disclosed.
Brazilian newspaper Valor reported in July that the Brazilian government had proposed exchanging its share of a Mercosur quota for reduced-tariff exports of chilled beef to the European Union for part of Uruguay’s beef quota in China. It remains unclear whether that proposal formed the basis of the understanding reached between the two South American countries.
This story was translated from the original Portuguese with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by The AgriBiz editorial staff.
