US imports eggs from Korea, Turkey to help ease prices

WASHINGTON: The United States is importing Turkish and South Korean eggs to ease an avian flu-fuelled supply crunch that has pushed up prices across the country, Donald Trump's agriculture secretary confirmed on Friday.

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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.