The Trump administration plans to import eggs from Turkey and South Korea, and is in talks with other countries in the hopes of easeing the highest ever price for American consumers, officials confirmed.
“We’re talking about hundreds of millions of eggs in the short term,” Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins told White House reporters.
This follows the administration’s announcement of a $1 billion (£792 million) plan to combat the violent avian flu epidemic that has forced US farmers to cull tens of millions of chickens.
Despite President Trump’s campaign promises to lower prices, egg costs have skyrocketed over 65% over the past year, with a 41% increase in 2025.
Rollins said her department is in discussions with other countries to ensure new supply, but did not identify which region.
“As our chicken populations resettle and we are once again moving on to the full egg laying industry, hopefully in a few months, we’ll return to the internal egg layer and move those eggs onto the shelf,” she said.
Poultry Associations in Poland and Lithuania said on Friday that the US embassy had also been approached by the US embassy regarding the possibility of egg export, AFP reported.
“In February, the US embassy in Warsaw asked the organization if Poland was interested in exporting eggs to the US market,” Catalgina Gauronska, national director of poultry and feed producers, told the press.
In February, the USDA announced a $500 million plan to tackle egg prices. The biosecurity budget was $500 million, approximately $100 million for vaccine research and development, and $400 million for the Farmer Financial Relief Program.
The Trump administration said it would provide commercial egg farms with best practices and consulting services free of charge and pay up to 75% to address vulnerabilities to prevent spread of avian flu.
“Our plan was to invest a significant amount of money to do audits nationwide to help the USDA secure these egg laying companies with barns,” Rollins said. “…and since we recently started doing it, we’ve seen a huge drop in bird flu.”
Avian flu (H5N1) has been circulating among American poultry flocks for years, but the outbreak that began in 2022 has wreaked havoc on farms, killing more than 156 million birds and surges egg prices.
Egg prices were a rallying point for Trump last year’s presidential election, sought to capitalize on voters’ complaints about rising costs for essential items.
In his speech to the US Congress earlier this month, he condemned his predecessor, Joe Biden, for the rising egg prices.
“Joe Biden has let the prices of eggs out of control, especially, and we’re working hard to get it back,” he added.
Egg prices have risen as the Biden administration directed millions of egg-selling birds to be culled last year amid the avian flu outbreak, but prices continue to rise in the early stages of Trump’s second presidency.
