Global News

Washington (AFP) – The United States is importing Turkish and South Korean eggs to ease an avian flu-fueled supply crunch that has pushed up prices across the country, Donald Trump's agriculture secretary confirmed Friday.

Brooke Rollins told reporters in Washington that imports from Turkey and South Korea had already begun and that the White House was also in talks with other countries about temporarily importing their eggs.

"We are talking in the hundreds of millions of eggs for the short term," she added.

The cost of eggs has skyrocketed due to multiple bird flu outbreaks in the United States, forcing farmers to cull at least 30 million birds and sharply constraining supply.

Egg prices became a rallying point for Trump in last year's presidential election campaign as he sought to capitalize on voters' frustrations with the rising cost of essential items during his predecessor Joe Biden's presidency.

After returning to office in January, Trump tasked Rollins with the job of boosting the supply of eggs, and bringing down prices.

In the weeks since, producers in several countries have reported American interest in their produce, with the Polish and Lithuanian poultry associations telling AFP that they had been approached by US diplomatic staff on the hunt for fresh eggs.

"There is a shortage of eggs in many countries," Katarzyna Gawronska, director of Poland's National Chamber of Poultry and Feed Producers, said recently. "The key question would be what financial conditions would be offered by the Americans."

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently noted that wholesale egg prices have fallen by almost 50 percent since late February, which suggests that consumer prices could soon start to fall.

"The downward trend underscores the effectiveness of USDA's approach," the agency said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Rollins said that the imports of eggs would stop once US poultry farmers were able to ramp up supply.

"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.