MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday described as “unfair” the choice by the Trump administration to droop imports of Mexican beef cattle for 15 days because of the detection of screwworm in shipments.
Sheinbaum, who has spent the previous few months scrambling to offset tariff threats by U.S. President Donald Trump, stated she hoped the suspension wouldn’t lead to one other financial blow for her nation.
“We don’t agree with this measure,” she stated at her morning press convention on Monday. “The Mexican authorities has been working an all fronts from the very first second we had been alerted to the screwworm.”
The U.S. restricted Mexican cattle shipments in late November following the detection of the pest, however lifted the ban in February after protocols had been put in place to guage the animals previous to entry into the nation. However there was an “unacceptable northward development” of the screwworm, the U.S. Division of Agriculture stated in a press release Sunday.
“The final time this devastating pest invaded the U.S. it took our livestock trade 30 years to get better,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins stated on the X social media platform. “This could by no means occur once more.”
The screwworm is a larva of the Cochliomyia hominivorax fly that may invade the tissues of any warm-blooded animal, together with people. The parasite enters the pores and skin, inflicting critical and life-threatening injury and lesions.
Mexico’s Well being Ministry issued an epidemiological warning this month after the primary human case of screwworm myiasis, or parasitic infestation, was confirmed on April 17 in a 77-year-old girl residing within the southern state of Chiapas.