The Mexican-US border has a long history of bootleggers, drug traffickers and gun runners. Now you can add egg smugglers to that list.
The US shortage caused scrambling of eggs, with desperate Americans cleaning supermarket shelves, buying their own chickens, heading south of the border and soaking in Mexican supply.
US Customs and Border Protection said black market egg attacks at ports of entry between October and last month increased by 36% compared to the same period a year ago. The most action took place in San Diego, up 158%.
This will be added to the splate of recent egg-related crimes, including 100,000 robbers They now find eggs from trucks in Pennsylvania and eggs from robbers at Luna Park Cafe in Seattle, whose owners are creating a group of burglars with egg supply.
Experts suspect the increase could be a response to inflation, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Prices are expected to rise by another 41% this year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average price in January was $4.95. By March it was $5.90.
•Why are egg prices still rising? US food inflation explained
These rising costs have made eggs a political flashpoint in the United States. In the week when President Trump attempted to establish peace between Russia and Ukraine, eggs remained a feature of multiple press conferences.
Explaining to the press on Thursday to discuss the future of European security after a meeting with NATO Executive Director Mark Latte, Trump said: We inherited that problem, the egg. ”
He repeated his claim on Friday, saying egg prices have fallen 35% in the past week and a half.
During the presidential election, Trump criticized the Biden administration for inflation, citing rising prices in grocery products, including eggs, and pledged to defeat them from the first day of the president. Political analysts believe that rising cost of living is key to his subsequent victory.
However, since Trump took office, egg prices have risen nearly 20%. Behind the scenes, the US government has asked Denmark and other European countries if they could ship to eggs to alleviate the shortage.
Some Democrats have urged them to ask for a price gouging investigation. Meanwhile, Federal Trade Commission’s Alvaro Bedoya proposed an investigation into “anti-competitive conduct” in the egg industry.
Democrats quickly pointed out that egg prices have risen since Trump took office
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But Brian Albrecht, chief economist at Minnesota’s Center for International Law and Economics, says that the main factors in egg inflation are clear.
“The first offender was the killing of 15% of the egg-eating chicken population,” Albrecht said. “It’s a pretty clear smoking gun.”
He said previous surges in egg prices in 2015 and 2023 also matched culling due to the outbreak of avian flu, with prices falling as the herd recovered the following year.
According to Albrecht, it’s a long time to bear the high price of eggs, given that people pay attention to the price of eggs is second only to what they’ve paid for fuel prices. “In the US, eggs and milk are often compiled as a typical indicator of how groceries are priced.”
The eggs are abnormal right now. Inflation data for February showed annual inflation for items on the Consumer Price Index was 2.8%, making it “a little cooler than expected,” Albrecht said.
It’s far lower than inflation during the COVID pandemic, but still outweighs pre-pandemic inflation, which was less than 2%.
Some supermarkets offer limited egg sales per customer
John G Mabanglo/EPA
It remains to be seen how all of this will be a potentially inflation cocktail tariff cocktail, and how it will be affected by Trump’s economic policy. “It’s hard to say because you don’t know what will continue,” Albrecht said. “Taxing customs: They change every day.”
For now, US egg prices have come a long way from falling. That is, the temptation to smuggle eggs from Mexico – costing a third, but it can last.
On the other side of the border, Mexicans enjoy reporting on egg-crowding issues with their neighbors.
“It’s official: there’s an egg cartel now,” says one person under a news report on social media.
“Latest: The egg cartel is declared a terrorist organization,” replied another.
Meanwhile, Los Huevos from Grupo Exterminador, a classic ’90s song, has regained a new popularity by telling the story of a wily trafficker smuggling drug-filled eggs across the border.
Some fear that smuggling into the US would raise egg prices in Mexico. However, Juan Carlos Anaya, a native of the Agricultural Trade Association’s GMCA, said there are few signs of this yet.
“I’ve never seen loot like a US supermarket where you can see empty shelves,” Anaya said. “It didn’t happen in Mexico.”
There are cases of avian flu in Mexico, but authorities there have taken a different approach to the US, preferring to vaccinate chickens rather than slaughtering flocks when the virus is found.
Anaya estimates that Mexican chickens continue to produce 140 million eggs per day, creating a position among Mexico’s largest producers in the world.
“We are the number one consumer per person. The average Mexican eats 24 kg or 25 kg of eggs a year,” he said. “Oddly, today was the exception. I didn’t eat eggs for breakfast. But I’m five out of seven days a week. On top of that, we beat them.”
