Fact check: Chinese facilities have been eligible to process and export US chicken for years

Chinese facilities have been eligible to process US chicken for nearly a decade

China has been able to process chicken from the United States since 2013, when four chicken processors were approved to export cooked poultry products from birds raised in the U.S., Canada and Chile. Politico and The New York Times reported about concerns over Chinese chicken exports reaching the American market, with the latter reporting that the country “does not have the best track record for food safety.” 

Under the rules, chicken processed in China would not require country-of-origin labeling, meaning consumers would not know "if the chicken came from Chinese processing plants," according to the Times.

In 2017, the rules were changed, and the first known shipment of cooked chicken from poultry raised in China arrived in the U.S., according to the Washington Post. It came after a trade deal, supported by then-President Donald Trump, to send more U.S. beef to China while receiving more Chinese poultry in the U.S., the Post reported.

In a July 8 email to Paste BN, a spokesperson for the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said that rigorous standards are used when inspecting food from China. "FSIS' process for ensuring the safety of imported meat, poultry, and egg products is rigorous and mandates that the exporting country has an equivalent food safety inspection system, which means that it achieves a level of public health protection equivalent to FSIS' robust inspection system," the spokesperson said. 

Fact check: Smithfield Foods is not selling meat that was slaughtered, processed in China

China's food safety system for poultry received the "equivalent" designation in 2019, when the USDA said a review of the country’s poultry laws and regulations found that they were “equivalent to the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA), the regulations implementing this statute, and the United States’ food safety system for poultry.”

As part of that equivalence decision, which the spokesperson said came after "extensive documentation" and audits, China was also permitted to export processed chicken products from birds slaughtered and processed in “certified [Chinese] establishments.”

A report by the USDA said China exported more than 50 metric tons of prepared or preserved chicken meat to the United States in 2021. The report did not specify how much, if any, of that quantity was from birds raised and slaughtered in the United States, sent to China for processing and returned to the country.