For the first time since 1992, the United States imported nearly half-a-million dollars worth of eggs from Russia this year.
This news was first reported by Russian news agencies but was confirmed by data released by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service on Sept. 4, which indicates that eggs worth $455,000 were imported from Russia in July 2025, the largest such shipment from that country into the U.S. since at least 1970.
Since taking office, the Trump Administration has taken a two-pronged approach in attempt to bring the price of eggs down for American consumers. The first is a strategy to combat avian flu, while the other is to import more eggs from other countries.
Although egg prices have decreased since their peak price in March, retail egg prices in July 2025 were still 16.4 percent higher than in July 2024, according to the Consumer Price Index for Food. The USDA
Economic Research Service forecasts that egg prices are predicted to increase 24.4 percent in 2025.
An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) that began in 2022 resulted in a reduction in egg-layer flocks and egg production, and drove up egg prices in the United States.
Confirmed cases of bird flu have tapered in 2025 and currently remain low, according to USDA, although fall migration season for wild birds is currently underway. Migratory birds may spread pathogens as they traverse major flyways, coming into contact with poultry flocks and resident wild birds as well as providing for viral contamination of the environment, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Although the Russian egg imports are small in comparison to America’s largest egg importers, they are part of a growing list of countries eager to seize on a new opportunity offered by the Trump Administration. While Canada and Chile remain the leading import suppliers of poultry and eggs to the United States, the Trump Administration’s push to bring in additional egg supplies in 2025 led to imports from countries that hadn’t sent such products into the United States in the last 50 years, including countries such as Pakistan, Honduras, Czech Republic, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria.
INCREASED IMPORTS
Other countries that increased their egg exports to the United States to the highest levels in more than 50 years of record-keeping include Brazil, Lithuania, Turkey, and Mexico, according to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service.
But eggs aren’t the only ag export leaving Russia and entering the United States. While the United States has imposed a variety of sanctions on certain aspects of the Russian economy (such as energy and luxury goods) as the result of its invasion and ongoing war in Ukraine, no sanctions exist for agricultural trade with Russia, except for a prohibition on the importation of Russian seafood into the United States. By the end of July, the U.S. had imported more than $121 million in agricultural and related products (not including fertilizer) from Russia during this fiscal year. Of that amount, $62 million was in forest products, and about $17 million was in consumer-oriented products.
About $30 million of Russian bulk ag commodities were exported to the United States this fiscal year, according to Foreign Agricultural Service data, mostly in the form of oilseeds ($23 million), pulses ($4.8 million), and coarse grains ($1.8 million). The U.S. also purchased $8.6 million in Russian oilseed meal and cake, and $1.7 million in other feeds and grain products.
American grain producers are currently struggling with decreased prices for their commodities, increased input costs, and the trade disruption caused by the tariffs imposed by the current administration on some of its major grain export partners. The trade dispute resulted in China imposing retaliatory tariffs and a boycott of American grain products.
In contrast, no such dispute exists as the result of tariffs imposed on Russia. Tariffs imposed on Russia are the same 10 percent baseline as those imposed on Ukraine. And it appears that Russia is going to have an overall productive year for its grain and oilseeds industry.
The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service estimates Russian wheat production this year is down about 2 percent from the five-year average. Although most wheat production is winter wheat, the overall reduced profitability of grains motivated Russian farmers to shift some key spring wheat areas to oilseeds.
Russia’s main oilseed and grain exports are barley, sunflowerseed, corn, soybeans and rapeseed, in that order of importance when measured in metric tons. Russia is forecast for a record marketing year for sunflowerseed production, up 11 percent from the five-year average, according to the Foreign Agricultural Service.