U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced this week that Mexico has committed to eliminate restrictions on USDA aircraft and waive customs duties on eradication equipment aiding in the response to the spread of New World screwworm (NWS), a deadly parasitic fly that infests warm-blooded animals, causing severe wounds and complications that can lead to death. Due to this agreement, ports will remain open to livestock imports; however, if at any time these terms are not upheld, port closure will be revisited. This agreement follows Secretary Rollins’ letter to Mexico Secretary of Agriculture Julio Antonio Berdegue Sacristan earlier in the week pushing for a resolution of the restrictions.
On April 26, Secretary Rollins sent a letter to her counterpart in Mexico regarding that country’s failure to uphold their part of the agreement by disrupting planes carrying sterile male flies, refusing pilots permission to land and instituting customs duties on flight components, sterile flies and sterile insect technique equipment. The sterile insect technique involves continuous release of sterile male screwworm flies that breed with wild screwworms and result in no offspring, eradicating the species. In the letter, Secretary Rollins said that failure to resolve the issues by April 30 would result in import restrictions on live animal commodities from Mexico into the U.S.
“I am happy to share Mexico has continued to partner in emergency efforts to eradicate the New World screwworm. This pest is a devastating threat to both of our economies, and I am pleased to work together with Mexico in good faith to protect the livelihoods of our ranchers and producers who would have been hurt by this pest,” said Secretary Rollins. “At USDA we are working every day to keep pests and disease from harming our agricultural industry. I thank our frontline USDA staff and their counterparts in Mexico for their work to ensure the screwworm does not harm our livestock industry.”