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The United States is importing Turkish and South Korean eggs to ease an avian flu-fueled supply crunch that has pushed up prices across the country, Donald Trump’s agriculture secretary confirmed Friday.

Brooke Rollins told reporters in Washington that imports from Turkey and South Korea had already begun and that the White House was also in talks with other countries about temporarily importing their eggs.

‘We are talking in the hundreds of millions of eggs for the short term,’ she added.

The cost of eggs has skyrocketed due to multiple bird flu outbreaks in the United States, forcing farmers to cull at least 30 million birds and sharply constraining supply.

Egg prices became a rallying point for Trump in last year’s presidential election campaign as he sought to capitalize on voters’ frustrations with the rising cost of essential items during his predecessor Joe Biden’s presidency.

After returning to office in January, Trump tasked Rollins with the job of boosting the supply of eggs, and bringing down prices.

In the weeks since, producers in several countries have reported American interest in their produce, with the Polish and Lithuanian poultry associations telling AFP that they had been approached by US diplomatic staff on the hunt for fresh eggs.

‘There is a shortage of eggs in many countries,’ Katarzyna Gawronska, director of Poland’s National Chamber of Poultry and Feed Producers, said recently. ‘The key question would be what financial conditions would be offered by the Americans.’

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently noted that wholesale egg prices have fallen by almost 50 percent since late February, which suggests that consumer prices could soon start to fall.

‘The downward trend underscores the effectiveness of USDA’s approach,’ the agency said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Rollins said that the imports of eggs would stop once US poultry farmers were able to ramp up supply.

‘When our chicken populations are repopulated and we’ve got a full egg laying industry going again—hopefully in a couple of months—we then shift back to our internal egg layers and moving those eggs out onto the shelf,’ she said.

Polish and Lithuanian poultry associations said on Friday they had been approached by US embassies regarding possible egg exports because of shortages caused by a bird flu outbreak.

Avian flu is exacting a heavy toll on US poultry farms, and has forced the cull of at least 30 million birds, sending egg prices soaring.

Producers in Poland and Lithuania said they had received questions on how many eggs they could export to the US market.

‘Back in February, the American embassy in Warsaw asked our organisation whether Poland would be interested in exporting eggs to the US market,’ said Katarzyna Gawronska, director of the National Chamber of Poultry and Feed Producers.

She told AFP the embassy had asked ‘what volumes we would be willing to export’.

A similar request has also been sent to producers in neighbouring Lithuania.

‘Our association was approached by the American embassy several weeks ago with the question if there are possibilities to export eggs from Lithuania to the United States,’ Lithuanian Poultry Association head Gytis Kauzonas told AFP.

But both countries pointed at obstacles to potential exports to the US market.

‘It’s difficult for us to make any firm statements about volumes because the situation on both the Polish and European markets is very tense,’ said Gawronska.

‘There is a shortage of eggs in many countries,’ she said, adding ‘the key question would be what financial conditions would be offered by the Americans.’

The Lithuanian Poultry Association said the Baltic country and EU markets would be a priority to local egg producers.

‘Farms have agreements and long-term contracts and it will be quite difficult to find additional production for export,’ Kauzonas said.