What's the real cost of the U.S.-Mexico border shutdown

A border closure can feel like a single policy switch, but the beef industry experiences it like a chain reaction. We sit down with Alvaro Bustillos, cattle rancher and founding partner of Vaquero Trading LLC, and president of the Chihuahua Cattlemen’s Association, to unpack what happens when the U.S.-Mexico feeder cattle trade stops moving, why the shutdown tied to New World Screwworm keeps returning, and how the economic shock spreads from ranches to feedlots to packing plants. If you care about cattle markets, beef supply, and real world biosecurity, this conversation gets specific fast. 

We hear how a cross border system built over generations works at ground level, then we dig into the protocol designed to manage risk: pre-inspection pens, multiple inspection points, quarantine handling, treatment applied ahead of arrival, and strict control of cattle movement. We also challenge a common misconception by tracing how New World Screwworm moved north from Panama and why containment depends less on rhetoric and more on verification, traceability, and enforceable procedures. 

From there, we follow the money and the capacity. The argument is made that blocking Mexican feeder cattle can cost the U.S. supply chain more than it costs Mexico, because of the level of value created in U.S. feedyards, the logistics, corn demand, and packing plants. We also explore the unintended outcome many people miss: when feeder cattle cannot cross, Mexican feeding and certified meat packing can ramp up, pushing more Mexican beef exports into the market and changing competitiveness over time. 

We end with a practical proposal: a regionalized, gradual reopening based on risk zones, disease accreditations, and tools like RFID cattle traceability, plus a call for U.S. and Mexican stakeholders to act like one North American industry. Subscribe, share this episode with someone in the cattle business, and leave a review so more producers and policy watchers can find the conversation.

Transcript

Welcome And Why The Border Matters

SPEAKER_00 1:00

And president of Chimbal Cannabis Association is with us today, joining beef contributing editor Clint Pennick to talk about the economic ramifications of a closed border.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Senior Bastillos, thanks for being with us today. And thanks for helping us learn more about your efforts to reopen the border to cattle trade.

A Ranching Life Across Two Countries

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Before we get too deep into our discussion about the cattle trade, can you give us a little bit of your backstory?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Well, basically, I grew up in I was born here in El Paso, Texas. I come from a third-generation ranching family. I remember since my grandfather, which they come from south of the border, they grew up in uh Namikipa, Chihuahua. And then with my dad, we moved to Nuevo Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, which is about 280 kilometers south of El Paso, where we have uh ranches in Hanos, Ascension, uh Casas Grandes. We have uh stalker cattle, uh uh cow calf operations down there. And um, since I was a boy, I've been running around the ranching industry with my dad and coming to the border, which the it's their um commercialization outlet where all these producers from the northern part of Mexico come to uh sell their cattle. So so basically, I I studied economics, uh uh graduated uh then with a specialty in finance, went to broke, uh work for a broker dealer trading fixed income. Then suddenly one day my dad says, after my professional practice, come down, I need you to get involved again. And that's how we started um with this new company, which we started uh as Vaquero Trading. See, we became one of the uh most prestigious sources of uh procurement cattle at the border, which I think uh we have a great relationship with all these um industry uh participants, which are feed yards, uh ranchers, farmers across the border, uh where we send cattle to probably nine states out of the US. So so um this this uh situation where which we're living right now is there's only been three times in the history uh where the border has shut down. Number one, Mexican Revolution. Second one was uh probably where when food and mouth disease happened, and this is the third time we've we've seen the the border. This border trade has been going on for over 120 years, and this is a complement of the industry where it uh all this uh is part of uh of families integrated together uh where we've uh commercialized for over centuries, and and now it's very uh sad to be

New World Screwworm And Shutdowns

SPEAKER_01 3:55

uh live in this situation.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

So we talked about um the letter that you helped author to the U.S. cattle industry and the cattle uh cattle feeding and cattle ranchers. Um what, if any reaction have you received to date regarding that letter? Um, and uh what are you what are you expecting, what are you seeing from from that communication?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Well, basically it's putting it's a it's a call out to the industry. As you see, we we it's it's changing the narrative of the story. You know, uh since uh the first case of New World Screwworm appear in Mexico, uh which was the first shutdown the November 2024, right? We worked very accelerated on a protocol uh where um this protocol reapplied. We were shut down for two months, and all this protocol was done like if all these northern states uh would have new world screw worm. I want to mention Mexico was not ground zero for the new world screwworm. The new world screw worm came from the from all the way from Panama, where the Darien Gap um they couldn't control it and started advancing. So once um it arrived to Mexico, Mexico became a positive country on the contingency that we're living now. And then they had certain parameters where um where if this new world screw warm advanced, I think there were some actions from US authorities that would be taking place, you know. Like um once we work on this protocol, resume we resume the trade, but at a very slow pace, where the infrastructure um had to be applied. We constructed infrastructure all across the border, a complement of pre-inspection pens, which was part of the protocol, uh, where we would inspect the cattle uh from the region, then re-inspected at the um at the border, uh obviously with the application of ivermectin five days before it arrived, and then it would jump to the quarantine pen still controlled by the US authorities, where they would they would get inspected again. See? So basically, once um this uh New World Scrum started advancing and and it passed the the slimmest part of Mexico as well. Uh is the um I don't remember what what it's called in English, but um where they thought they would control it, right? Um it they we got into our second shutdown. So we had a resumption of trade before three months, all the way to May 15th, uh, where they shut us down again, and then we were starting to ramp up uh uh volume and and and getting some of these cattle across, but suddenly once the the New World School Worm started advancing, we got shut down again. I think this uh narrative that we want to call out is that um the the first of all, the northern states are the big best allies of the US because we're uh we're part of a complement of the industry, we're not in competition. At the end, uh we source uh these cattle to send to the US industry where two-thirds of the value is created in the US. And I think if if if Mexico is losing uh one dollar, I think in in in the US, it affects five dollars. It's it's a proportion of one to five. At the end, uh we use a lot of uh American strategic assets like ranches, farms, feed yards, uh packing plants, and you see how important the Mexican cattle trade deal is now because we export 1.2 million head of cattle, even though it's it's a three to four percent um market uh share of the market in the US, Clint. I think once you industrialize this cattle, this ramps up to six percent in beef. But at the end, like if the Texas panhandle um feeds uh it sources 25 percent of the protein in the US, and and our cattle go there about 15 of their market share, you know how important this proportion is to them, and that's where we're getting hurt. So I think we have big allies. We're part of uh also we pay the beef checkoff once we export cattle. We're part of NCBA, we participate on the board of uh Texas Cattle Fielders because they're our best allies, but we have uh we've had a lot of um uh good um support from California, from Arizona, from New Mexico, and and I think we're on the same page.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

So at the end of the day, we have a lot of cattle ranchers in and I'm up in Montana, and and and as we get as far north as Montana, they kind of don't understand or want to understand uh that there is that integration of the cattle industries between northern, specifically northern Mexico and US, and and and especially like you said, those uh Southwest uh stalker operators and cattle feeders. Um what uh what's in it for them if the border stays closed, and what's in it for them if the if the border opens up?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

I I think at as I told you, I I don't think number one, it won't affect the market because we're at a proportion very small regarding to the whole industry of what uh the market is in the US. Number two, uh Clint, is they don't realize that if if reduced capacity, which right now the leverage is on the cow, calf, or producer side, at the end, if if part of this value change gets reduced or gets shut down, and they're still seeing high prices on the car, it'll come to them one way or the other. It's not because of the shortage of Mexican cattle that they're having these high prices, you know. And number three is we we are part of the system. Like what we need to understand is all the genetics, all of the things that we've created in the northern part of Mexico is due to uh being a complement of the US industry. We are whatever the US industry wanted us to be, based on genetics, quality of cattle, all what whatever the demand is from the value change that I'm talking about, and that's what we became in the north part. And number three, we need to give credit to Mexico. As I told you, we were not ground zero, but at the end, we gave them more than over a year for the for the US to prepare. And you you don't understand the consequences that the Mexican side has lived through to for this shutdown to be be established. Because at the end, who's ever paying the biggest cost of this shutdown is the northern states, because there's the lost opportunity of commercializing the cattle, and they need to go to the national market. And you're losing a lot of things that we've worked through for over 40 years, which is the accreditations of having

The Five To One Economic Ripple

SPEAKER_01 11:35

TV tests, uh Bruce Lellosis uh accreditations, which are bigger risks than New World Screwworm. At the end, new world screw worm is a disease, not a pest. And that's what we need to understand. At the end, there's bigger risks of not incentivizing or keeping up with these accreditations of being integrated in the value change of the industry.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

So in your letter to the U.S. cattle industry, uh, you suggested a regionalized approach to opening the border, a gradual reopening of the border. How does that work if you look at just a regionalized approach? What would be that scenario?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

I think last year we already established what the protocol uh would mean for us to commercialize cattle. Cattle, um obviously Mexican cattle are very rough. They before they get prepared and going to the US, they have to go through a 45-60-day cycle of testing and and uh pre-inspections and and all this uh preparation that we need to establish before uh we ship these cattle to the border. Um at the end, what we did is we regionalized the country where the southern part is what already contaminated of New World Screwworm. We have a buffer zone kind of on the middle of Mexico where there's not a lot of there's no movements of cattle from the south to the from the south center to the northern part. See? Because at the end, we we keep the hope or uh that sometimes we could reestablish this trade based on on um a lot of the efforts that us northern states um which have the accreditations to export um all these efforts to contain the new world school worm, which is limit limiting um movements of cattle, uh which are protecting our states, like uh Sonora is protecting their state, Chihuahua is protecting their state, and we have a series of uh activities regarding that uh which we've been doing, where we don't permit transit of cattle of other states, where all the herd is is is herd that um that was born in these states. And at the end, these these states are used working to to um to US procedures because we already have the accreditations of what I'm telling you about TV, brucellosis, and we are very adjusted to U.S. standards of of uh of um sanitary contingencies that we worked. At the end, Chihuahua, I want to make clear, has the biggest traceability program. We have one of the best traceability programs in the world, which we have the RFID uh tax, and we have a system where we were already integrated in um there's a certification of Chihuahua verified beef in the US, where we were approving the origin of the cattle, and we have already all these uh readers at the crossing ports where all these cattle get read uh where the origin of the of their of the of the cattle is coming from. I think uh we're already used to working under this protocol. This protocol was done uh based that uh New World Schoolworm would arrive to these border states because there's not enough flies to contain it, and we cannot contain the flight, the movement of the flight. What we can work is on the ground, limiting uh movements of cattle, um where we've established uh parameters of uh of um of people checking and and working with the cattle, applying ivermectin, and all these efforts that we've done. And that's what's permitted the US uh to buy out uh some time for you guys to get advanced on the on the plant that you guys are working. As you know, a month ago we we Mexico iterated a plant already uh which will uh produce probably in one more month or six more weeks, we'll ramp it up to 100, 120 million flies that um that could uh come into participate in this contingency.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

So, meanwhile, the we hear reports that the Mexican uh cattle feeding industry is ramping up and the meat packing industry in uh uh in in uh Sonora, Chihuahua, and other places of Mexico are ramping up. And now we're receiving Mexican beef basically in lieu of the feeder cattle. Is am I correct in that assumption?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

This is the cost of opportunity that the authorities of US need to understand. If they shut us down, they're taking away probably 50,000 employments numbers in what the the Mexican export uh market participates. You're losing packing capacity in the US, you're losing value of

Regional Reopening And Traceability Systems

SPEAKER_01 16:45

your exports, and you're losing value of integrating corn and all these participants that uh that are established throughout the value chain of the industry, and you're giving it away to the Mexicans because at the end, those cattle will have to be integrated somewhere, and the only way they need to go will go to Mexican feed yards, will go to Mexican packing plants that are certified, and and you've seen the number USDA uh publishes them. We've grown 30 percent on exports of beef. See, so what do we what are what is our offset as an industry, Clint? Do you want to give it to the Mexicans or do you want to give it to the American companies? And that's where we're losing competitiveness. I think it's a cost that's what I told you, it's costing more to the US industry to have a shutdown than what it's costing them us Mexican producers. It's a five to one ratio. Remember, two-thirds of the value integrated in the US. They feed off of U.S. corn. Uh, we give employment to veterinaries, to transportation logistics companies, uh, to American assets like feedards, to like give capacity to the packing plants. You see, all these uh packing plants are reduced shifts, they there's some of them are shutting down, and and I think this will affect you one way or the other. Even if the border is shut down, it'll affect the US producers. So we need we need to come together as an industry and and and restablish the economic part of it where I think Mexico recognizes regionalization parts of the US regarding pork, regarding uh chicken, uh with uh with those flus or fevers, and they don't want to recognize Mexico. That's my big question. What's going on? Why is it one one participant or one player that has only the narrative or the ball? See, and they're destroying a lot of value. I think that's where I'm telling you, where is the where's the opportunity? Do you want to give it to the Mexicans? Okay, we're gonna integrate more. I think there's an incentive to integrate corn sheep, feed the sheep, and we have uh accreditations to export beef to you guys, so that's where the beef is going to go.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

So whether the border opens up or not, we still have a problem of cattle coming across through Central America, um, to Guatemala and into uh into Mexico. Is the Mexican government working on trying to slow that trade down? Because we believe that that's that's a a vehicle for the uh for the New World screw worm coming out of out of Panama, uh uh this side of the Darien Gap. Uh what would you project the Mexican government could do? And are your cattlemen working with the Mexican government to try to slow that um movement of cattle uh unrestricted coming out of South America, uh Central America?

SPEAKER_01 20:06

You know, uh Clint, it was um balance of commerce regarding those cattle, okay? And and I'm gonna tell you, because I was the one that called that out at the beginning of when this happened. I think if if 500,000 head were coming from South America, we were still exporting 1.2 million head of cattle. At the end, those cattle are not coming to the northern part of Mexico. See, those cattle won't make it because of the quality, won't make it because of um of the um genetics that that um US feed yards or buyers are used to. They won't buy all those ugly sucker cattle that that are coming to feed the southern or central part of Mexico. That's where those cattle are going to some of these uh feed yards. And and at the end, I think with uh this balance that I'm telling you about, when you leave 1 million, 1.2 million head of cattle in um in Mexico, there's not a lot of incentive to bring cattle from the southern part, you know. I think at the end, uh the feed yard capacity is uh as as as infrastructure is a set capacity, and it was adjusted to whatever the balance of the market was. If 500 were coming, we were exporting 500. At the end, there's no no capacity for both parts. So, but now I think um when uh these movements of uh regionalization happen in Mexico, when we regionalized the country and we put uh pre inspection

When Feeder Cattle Becomes Mexican Beef

SPEAKER_01 21:45

points, it reduced a lot or controlled a lot of the movements, see, because they're applying an a new ear tech for those cattle that are going to accredited feed yards, and they have to be worked under a protocol of application of inspection. inspections and ivermectine and at the end um those cattle are are are now on a not an illegal way but a formal way um uh being checked or inspected uh coming into mexico what we would like as uh as northern states we would like for the damn government to take action shut it down send 10 15 20 40 000 elements of the of the um of the army does don't let any cattle get across and at the end establish a um quarantine pens if they want to come across we're not against coming across but we would like for them to have the damn same protocol that we are asked to come to the US because at the end we need to integrate as a gold industry between the three countries it's it's Mexico Canada and the US that need to participate as an industry see okay so where do you go from here senor bastillos with your movement and your push to open the border well i i think we're seeing that that letter was done client in a way where i think mexico at the end we market uh or industry participants have done everything everything that we can already we've done even more than they've asked us uh as exported states i think now is the chance or the narrative of the US industry to call out and tell the authorities hey we cannot have a double mortal speech you know now you have new world screwworm in Texas and New Mexico see and where are they grabbing the protocol to uh move cattle it came from the protocol that we did at the at the Mexican market so there's no need to have the border shut down and and still move be moving cattle out of where's Texas or New Mexico

Central America Cattle Flow And Controls

SPEAKER_01 24:05

because it's done in the same way that we exported the cattle see that that's where we need to establish sit down and without with our thorough and and and I think at the end as well Mexico needs to open up the border for US because now with this narrative that the now the the the world screwworm is in us now Mexican shut down the border to uh to US cattle and movement of horses and and everything so it's it's if this thing is affecting so much the economic side of the of the of the industry that it'll bring bigger consequences than what we can attend.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

I think more cattle dies from uh from flu than from uh from new world screwworm we don't see a lot of cattle dying from new world screw worm right I think it it's you you have a solution or a cure for new world screwworm so I think we can adjust the protocols where you don't kill the economic side of the of the of the of the industry so this is where I've been telling the the the our allies uh some of these uh eight or nine states where all these cattle go which is California Arizona uh Nebraska Colorado Kansas Oklahoma New Mexico Texas hey you guys that are the guys that create value out of these mexican cattle need to at least call out that it's you guys are being affected I think the affection is bigger on your side than what it is on the Mexican side so that's where we need to establish and we're seeing it in a lot of uh other industries where they've come together and that's what I would like to see where we the cattle industry come together both Mexican and the US more from from the US side and and and tell the the whoever's uh taking the decisions the authorities uh to to tell them hey open

What The Industry Should Do Next

SPEAKER_02 26:10

this up we can't strangle the economic side of it so at the end we're seeing it uh in other industries as as I showed you and we've we're seeing a lot of this narrative with with a lot of uh uh a lot of other industries Clint well senor bastillos we're kind of uh running up against our time limit um I appreciate you being here and uh this frank uh conversation about the US Mexico border and the feeder cattle trade and I I hope that your efforts uh result in in in a solution that can benefit both the cattle industries in the United States and in Mexico this episode of Feed to Duft in Focus has been sponsored by United Animal Health a leader in animal health and nutrition and you can learn more about United Animal Health and how they're working to advance animal science worldwide by visiting their website at unitedanh.com I'm Sarah Muirhead and you've been listening to Feed to if you would like to hear more conversations about some of the big issues affecting the livestock poultry green and animal feed industries subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast channel.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Until next time have a great day and thank you for listening.