Good news for consumers: the ban on beef imports from Canada will be lifted this week, which should lead to lower prices for beef products on both sides of the border. As I discussed before and Pieter Dorsman mentioned Friday, the import ban had little to do with the risk of BSE (or “mad cow disease”):

More than anything it was a deliberate move influenced by US meatpackers to manipulate prices. Even in Canada prices somehow remained higher than where they should have been despite the glut of beef.

Reducing this sort of rent-seeking behavior is a very compelling argument for continued progress in dismantling trade barriers in food products.