The government of Japan announced last week that rising imports of frozen beef in the first quarter of the Japanese fiscal year (April-June) have triggered a safeguard, resulting in an automatic increase to Japan’s tariff rate under the World Trade Organization (WTO) on imports of frozen beef from the United States.

The increase, from 38.5 percent to 50 percent, was scheduled to begin Aug. 1, 2017, and will last through March 31, 2018, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced. The tariff affects only exporters from countries, including the United States, that don’t have free trade agreements with Japan currently in force.

"I am concerned that an in­­crease in Japan’s tariff on frozen beef imports ...