This archive report was first published on 21 June 2020.
China Halts Tyson Foods Poultry Imports Amid Coronavirus Outbreak ¶
China's General Administration of Customs has temporarily suspended poultry imports from a Tyson Foods slaughterhouse with coronavirus cases among its workers, amid a Beijing outbreak.
The agency's notice, issued on June 21, 2020, cited the need to prevent the spread of the virus, which has already curbed almost all transmission within China's borders.
According to the notice, shipments from the slaughterhouse that have already arrived in China will also be seized. The agency did not identify the location of the slaughterhouse, providing instead a registration number: P5842.
Over the course of this spring, Tyson Foods has disclosed cases among its workers in several U.S. states. On June 19, 2020, the company said that 13 percent of the 3,748 employees at its facilities in northwestern Arkansas had tested positive for the coronavirus, with almost all being asymptomatic.
The move is likely to make it even harder for China to meet its promise to buy more U.S. goods as part of its Phase 1 trade agreement with the Trump administration, signed in January.
However, American critics of food processing giants, particularly pork producers, contend that the companies have risked the health of their workers by keeping operations running, in part to supply China.
