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Mexican Ranchers Delay Cattle Exports to U.S. Until Sept. 8
🇵🇾 Paraguay /Economy & Trade

Mexican Ranchers Delay Cattle Exports to U.S. Until Sept. 8

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire From a news agency Ongoing story
  • Live cattle exports from Agua Prieta, Sonora, to the United States were postponed until Sept. 8 after a technical problem affected inspection equipment.
  • The Sonora Regional Livestock Union said the equipment posed risks to workers and cattle and called for consideration of the Nogales quarantine facility.
  • The delay follows the Aug. 24 reopening of the Douglas crossing after more than a year of intermittent closures linked to the cattle screwworm.

The planned resumption of live cattle exports from Agua Prieta, in Mexico's Sonora state, has been pushed back to Sept. 8 after a technical failure at the quarantine station.

The Sonora Regional Livestock Union said an inspection chute used by U.S. Department of Agriculture personnel developed problems on Aug. 28. The narrow passage, designed to hold and examine cattle, presented a risk to both workers and animals, the union said. The equipment will be replaced, and the new floor must set before operations can resume.

presented anomalies that represented a risk to personnel and the cattle themselves

— Sonora Regional Livestock UnionThe union explained why exports had to be suspended and the inspection chute replaced.

The union said the work would take three to four days. Because Sept. 7 is Labor Day in the United States, operations are scheduled to restart the following day using appointments that had been arranged before the suspension.

Sonora's ranchers also renewed their request to open the Nogales quarantine station. They said the facility has the infrastructure needed to receive and pre-inspect cattle under the required protocol.

the replacement of the equipment, and guarantee the safety of everyone involved in this long-awaited process for Sonora's ranchers

— Sonora Regional Livestock UnionThe union described the purpose of the temporary suspension.

The interruption comes shortly after Mexico and the United States reopened the Douglas port on Aug. 24. The first shipment included 750 head of cattle, with plans to gradually increase the flow to 1,500 animals a day. The reopening ended more than a year of intermittent closures caused by the spread of cattle screwworm, a larva that invades the living tissue of warm-blooded animals.

The United States first suspended Mexican cattle imports in November 2024 after a case was detected in Chiapas. Washington later closed its border ports again on May 11, 2025, after the pest spread to Oaxaca and Veracruz. The Douglas crossing reopened on July 7, 2025, but closed two days later after another case was reported in Veracruz. Exports remained suspended until the August reopening.

will take three to four days for the floors to set and the new chute to be installed

— Project managerThe expected timetable for replacing the inspection equipment.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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