A Senior Risk Management Analyst with HAMS Marketing Services says the uncertainty created by the Trump administration’s on again off again tariff war has had a minimal impact on live hog prices

Uncertainty resulting from U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatened imposition of new tariffs on more than 75 of its trading partners has pressured futures markets but cash markets for hogs have remained stable.

Paul Marchand, a Senior Risk Management Analyst with HAMS Marketing Services, says for the most part the Canada, Mexico, U.S. trade agreement has protected the North American hog industry and, while there has been temptation among Canadian political leaders to duke it out with President Trump on Twitter, Mexico has been staying out of the tit for tat twitter fights, a credit to President Sheinbaum, and has indicated it will respond if it needs to respond.

 “We’re still very early into seeing if some of those supply chains or contractual relationships are going to be changed in the coming days and weeks”

“The live hog pricing situation, and when we talk about a live hog, I’m going to speak specifically to market hogs that are being delivered to federally inspected plants that are destined for processing in Canada.

“Those cash prices have remained really resilient.

“It started off at a very high level relative to recent history and in fact marketing week one was the highest base price that we’ve seen on record for any marketing year and then it more or less followed a seasonal pattern.

“There was bit of a post Christmas delay heading into the year. February saw a bit of a pick up ramping up into Easter.

“Now that Easter is behind us, we’re seeing it pull back a little bit but, from the already high level, the cash price itself has been very strong to start the year which is a good thing because there is a lot of uncertainty on the horizon.

“The impact of a tariff situation or a trade war situation or a supply chain disruption or anything like that, I would make the argument hasn’t impacted cash pricing for market hogs yet but we’re still very early into seeing if some of those supply chains or contractual relationships are going to be changed in the coming days and weeks.”