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Wed, Sept 30th, 2026

Mexican cattle cross the border again while beef packers sit at their lows. Also: Boeing wins the Navy's F/A-XX, Qatar extends its LNG force majeure into December, and 60 million children get Trump Accounts on October 1.

01Score64

Mexican cattle are crossing the border again, and the beef packers are still at their lows

Summary

The US reopened its busiest port for Mexican feeder cattle on September 24, 2026, after more than 16 months shut over screwworm — Tyson Foods and JBS trade near six-month lows even though beef packer margins have been positive for six straight weeks and the supply that was missing has started to return.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced on September 17, 2026 that the Santa Teresa, New Mexico livestock port would reopen to Mexican cattle, and it did so on September 24, 2026, with 101 steers crossing on the first day under joint USDA and SENASICA inspection. The port had been closed to cattle since May 2025 because of New World screwworm. Santa Teresa handled nearly 500,000 head in 2024, about 40% of US cattle imports from Mexico; before the closures Mexico shipped more than one million head a year into the US for feeding and processing.

Santa Teresa is the second phase of a staged reopening. Douglas, Arizona reopened on August 24, 2026 and had processed about 5,000 head by September 18. USDA says it is assessing Columbus, New Mexico and Nogales, Arizona next. Texas lifted its screwworm quarantine zones in Jim Hogg, Zapata and Starr counties in late September 2026; Transport Topics reports two active US cases against nearly 2,000 active cases in Mexico.

On the packer side, Tyson Foods cut its fiscal 2026 adjusted operating income forecast to $1.85–2.05 billion on September 3, 2026, its second cut in about a month, citing deepening beef losses. Meatingplace reported on September 28, 2026 that beef packers had six consecutive weeks of positive margins, estimated at $130–160 a head, the longest streak since February–March 2023. Yahoo Finance data show Tyson (TSN) at $51.00 on September 30, 2026, about 26% below its May 4 close of $68.75, and JBS (JBS) at $11.44, about 38% below its April 9 close of $18.42; both touched six-month lows in the week of September 21.

Opportunity

The beef-packer story in the market is a herd at multi-decade lows, record cattle prices, plant closures and guidance cuts. That story was written while the southern border was shut. Two things have now changed at once: packer margins have turned positive on their own, and the largest single source of outside feeder supply has started flowing again.

Mexican feeder cattle go mostly to feedyards in the southern Plains, the same region as many of the largest packing plants. More feeders lower the cost of placements, and those cattle reach slaughter weight roughly five to six months later, which means more fed cattle for packers through the first half of 2027 without waiting for a US herd rebuild.

Hypothesis: Tyson and JBS are priced for beef losses that persist, while the two inputs that caused them, scarce cattle and a closed border, are both easing. If the third phase of reopening goes ahead without a new US detection, the beef segments could move from the worst part of the cycle toward break-even or better in 2027, while the shares still reflect the September 2026 guidance cuts.

Hypothesis: the lag between placement and slaughter means the benefit will not show in reported results for a quarter or two, which is the kind of gap in which the market tends to keep extrapolating the last bad print.

How it could play out

Santa Teresa and Douglas run without incident → USDA opens Columbus and Nogales → crossings climb back toward the pre-closure pace of about one million head a year → southern Plains feedyards place more cattle at lower cost → from early 2027 packers have more fed cattle to process, utilisation rises and the positive margins that began in August 2026 become durable → Tyson’s beef segment and JBS’s US beef business improve against guidance that assumed a closed border.

The failure path: a new screwworm detection near the border shuts the ports again, as happened in 2025, and the herd stays tight.

Questions worth asking

  • Does USDA open Columbus and Nogales on schedule, pushing crossings back toward about one million head a year, or does a new US screwworm detection close the border again?
  • How much of Tyson’s September 3, 2026 guidance cut assumed the border stayed shut, and what do the fiscal fourth-quarter results in mid-November show about the margin run that began in August 2026?
  • Are CME feeder cattle futures still priced for the scarcity of the closure period, and how far could more Mexican supply pull deferred contracts down?
  • Which packing plants sit closest to the southern Plains feedyards that take Mexican cattle, and which owner, listed or private, gains most from better utilisation there?
  • Does cheaper feeder supply slow US heifer retention and so delay the herd rebuild, keeping packers dependent on imports for longer?

Where to look

  • Tyson Foods (TSN) — one of the two largest US beef packers, near a six-month low after two guidance cuts driven by beef losses
  • JBS (JBS) — NYSE-listed owner of one of the big four US beef packers, about 38% below its April 2026 high
  • MBRF (MBRF3.SA) — the Brazilian group formed from Marfrig and BRF, which controls National Beef, another of the big four US packers
  • CME feeder cattle futures — the most direct gauge of how much Mexican supply is already priced in
  • US southern Plains feedyards and cattle feeders — mostly private, but the first to benefit from cheaper placements

Thesis check

The chain is short and the facts are primary: USDA has reopened two ports on dated schedules, Santa Teresa’s historical share of Mexican imports is documented, packer margins have been positive for six weeks, and Tyson and JBS trade near their lows.

The weak links are scale, timing and disease. About one million Mexican head a year is a small share of total US slaughter; cattle placed now only reach packers in 2027; Tyson and JBS earnings also depend on chicken, pork and other segments; and with nearly 2,000 active screwworm cases in Mexico, one US detection could close the border again, as it did in 2025.

Timing

USDA is assessing a third phase at Columbus, NM and Nogales, AZ; Tyson reports fiscal fourth-quarter results in mid-November 2026

Sources

Transport Topics, Sep 2026 · Kansas Livestock Association, Sep 18 2026 · Legal Insurrection, Sep 29 2026 · Meatingplace, Sep 28 2026 · Quartz, Sep 3 2026 · Yahoo Finance price data, Sep 30 2026

Open on its own pageFound Sep 30agriculture

Also worth knowing

  • Boeing won the Navy’s F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter — The Navy awarded Boeing the F/A-XX contract on September 29, 2026, beating Northrop Grumman; Janes and other outlets put the development award at about $20 billion. The jet replaces the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler from the 2030s and will be built in St. Louis, where Boeing also builds the Air Force’s F-47.

    Boeing now holds both US sixth-generation fighter programs in one plant, and officials have already raised industrial-capacity concerns about running them together; the engine choice between GE and Pratt & Whitney has not been disclosed.

  • Qatar extended its LNG force majeure into early December — QatarEnergy prolonged its force majeure on LNG cargoes to Asia and Europe through November and into early December 2026, reported September 28, 2026, with Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Italy’s Edison among the buyers losing cargoes. Ras Laffan runs at reduced capacity after damage in March.

    The extension means Europe and South Asia enter winter without Qatari supply they had contracted, with LNG prices already at their highest since late 2022.

  • Treasury will open Trump Accounts for about 60 million children on October 1 — Temporary and proposed regulations published September 29–30, 2026 let the Treasury auto-enrol every eligible child under 18 with a Social Security number who has no account, starting October 1, 2026; assets are pooled in a master group trust invested only in US equity index funds with expense ratios capped at 0.1%. BNY is Treasury’s financial agent and Robinhood built the app.

    An account for nearly every American child creates the largest new retail brokerage population in years, and the question is who keeps those customers when contributions start and when the accounts convert at 18.

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  • The EU proposed delaying its methane rules for oil and gas imports by a year — Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen backed moving the importer monitoring and reporting requirements from 2027 to 2028 after meeting ministers from all 27 member states in Dublin on September 30, 2026, citing the risk that exporters unable to comply would avoid Europe ahead of a difficult winter.

    The delay removes a compliance hurdle for US and other LNG and crude exporters selling into Europe, and signals that Brussels will bend climate rules to keep supply coming.

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  • Essar Group announced a $15 billion steel plant in Iowa and a new Minnesota iron mine — Announced in the Oval Office on September 29, 2026 with co-founder Ravi Ruia, the plan includes a $2.5 billion mine on Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range, described as the first new US iron mine in 50 years, with production targeted by 2030 and 1,750 permanent jobs in Iowa.

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    The end of the mission comes while Iraqi oil exports still depend on routes exposed to the Iran conflict, and it changes the security backdrop for the companies operating in Iraq and the Kurdistan region.

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