Argentina is limiting its beef exports:
Taming inflation was [former President Nestor] Kirchner's goal when he banned most [Argentine] beef exports last year. This year, exports were capped at 480,000 metric tons, down from nearly 700,000 tons in 2005.
Kirchner's wife, the newly elected President Cristina Fernandez, has promised to maintain a high export tax that makes outbound beef too costly for many foreign buyers. So ranchers must keep selling 80 percent of their meat to swamped local markets where profits as well as prices are low.
As an occasional beef consumer, I don't like the higher beef prices I pay as a result of this. The problem, of course, is that foreign producers are happy with the diminished competition, so they are never going to complain. Isn't there some country that consumes a lot of beef, but does not produce much, that might challenge this under WTO rules? Could the Argentine beef industry pay some other WTO Member to bring a complaint?
(And yes, I admit I did this post mainly because the post title was too perfect to pass up.)
